All Creatures Great and Small: Directors Edition
by Mountain King
Summary: A rewrite of my lynch pin multi-crossover epic. Buffy receives a Slayer dream that leads her into the middle of a galaxy spanning war and leads Dawn to make choices between family and duty. Transformers G1 Buffy SG1 crossover, part of my transformers saga
1. Introduction

All Creatures Great and Small  
Directors Edition

Introduction  
June 2007:-

This story was my first multi-crossover epic, I ended it with the statement that:- "This could go on forever." At first that was a get out of jail free card for "I don't want to write anymore." I had said all I thought I could and other stories were spawning across my hard drive.

Eventually I got working on a pair of prequels (check my Author's Bio page for the links) and then came the new movie and I realised that this needed looking at. After re-reading it and it's reviews (it is still one of my most reviewed stories) I knew I had to tweak a few bits. As a writer starting off it's not a bad story, as a linchpin in a multi-crossover epic featuring some of the greatest heroes in fiction for the last twenty years it really needs work.

I have called this tweaking a "Directors Edition" because that's what this is to me. The difference to this and the two (so far) "REDUX" stories is that they lost their way and needed a rewrite. For this one I have added more detail, spelling mistakes have been fixed as best I can and lost plot points such as Faith's situation and the SGC have been restored from my original notes.

I've posted this as a new story in a single block because, while they are welcome, reviews are not the goal of this story. Repairing mistakes and showing the differences are more important to me here. This IS NOT a repeat story, the differences are there for people to notice and anyone can see them. I have also removed authors notes and matched formatting across all chapters so there are no brakes that detract from the plot.

Hope you enjoy it

Disclaimer:-  
I own non of the characters used in this fan-fiction:-

Transformers and all related media are property of Hasbro

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and related characters/backgrounds belong to Mutant Enemy Inc.

Stargate SG-1 and everything connected to belong to Double Secret Productions.

While the plot (alone) belongs to Thomas Fishwick no profit of any kind is made by him in regards to other's Intellectual Copyright, or is intended.

Mountain King  
AKA Thomas Fishwick  
June 2007


	2. Chapter 1

All Creatures Great and Small  
Directors Edition  
Chapter 1

Buffy lay on her back looking at nothing. Two weeks ago Willow had left with Giles for England. Just her, Dawn and Xander were left of the once inseparable Scooby Gang. Dawn had somehow passed all of her classes this year. Xander was now a full blown foreman at the rebuild of the old Sunnydale high. Spike was long gone for who knows where and Buffy's job at the Double-meat palace was causing her more trouble than it paid.

All of this was nothing compared to last night. A slayer vision, the first in a long time. It was still a jumble of images and feelings. All Buffy could be sure of was something BIG and dark was coming. The only way to stop the big dark thing was a light. That light was hidden in a mountain somewhere. As far as she could tell from the dream the mountain she had to find was once a volcano.

Pulling herself out of bed she went to the computer and looked for volcanos, trying to find the one she had seen for that fleeting moment.

* * *

Dawn bounced down the stairs and into the kitchen, not noticing Buffy sleeping in front of the computer. She quickly burnt her breakfast and made herself some coffee. Walking through the dining room she finally saw Buffy slumped in her seat. Smiling she thought nothing of it and went to watch Saturday morning cartoons.

Just when she sat down she heard Buffy scream. Throwing her coffee all over the room Dawn scrambled off the floor and ran to her sister. She was pail and shaking, looking at the computer screen like it had bitten her. 'Buffy! Buffy what happened?'

'Dawn. He's coming! He has to be stopped!' the Slayer screeched. Buffy was clawing at the table edge, splintering it and her own fingernails.

'Who's coming?' Dawn had never seen this wild look in her sisters eyes before. 'Who?'

'I'm not sure. He's coming here. We have to stop Him somehow'

'Buffy, your not making sense. Did you just have a slayer dream?'

'Yes, no, I don't know.' She swallowed and sat upright in the chair. Visibly calming but she still looked a little wild. 'It felt different, like someone else was trying to tell me what was happening other than the usual "look out". Whatever it is the answer, and perhaps the only hope we have, is there in Oregon.'

'Mount St. Hilary? A volcano?'

'The moment I saw it I was out like a busted light. We have to call Xander and get there.'

'All of us?'

'No just us three I don't want to interrupt Willow's retreat.'

'Oh all of us then.'

* * *

Xander pulled the car up to a small motel just within the city. Shelling out for two rooms was the least of their troubles. Each time Buffy fell asleep she had a vision of what was coming. Now she was certain that there was something guiding her here and Xander was very worried about that. Dawn's research, while they were on the road, said that there had been lots of big shadows and small areas of massive destruction all over the state. Mostly it seemed to be centred around power plants and natural energy resources. No one knew how or what caused it. The press said it was due to the experiments the power plants used and the plant workers said that storms and localised earthquakes were to blame. The government just ignored it and said nothing was happening.

They all stayed the night in their two motel rooms. In the morning they decided that Dawn would stay in the rooms and research more on the damage while Buffy and himself drove around and tried to find whatever was calling to her.

* * *

Dawn was bored. No question about it. Five hours of research and all she had found was a police report saying that one of the eye witness was as nutty as a fruit cake and has been sent to the hospital. Zoning out in front of the TV she found a news report on another patch of recent wholesale destruction. Unable to find the strength to change the channel she let the words pass over her.

At that moment another thing passed over her, a blue, red and white military jet, closely following a jet powered helicopter. This one unlike anything in the armed forces, it's bullet shaped nose cone preceded a wide wingspan. Just above the wings two small helicopter rotor blades helped lift the fast craft through the sky. The blue and white jet fired twin laser cannons again at the running heli-fighter. One lance of destructive light flew wide but the other nailed its right rotor. The unearthly aircraft smashed into the motel building, destroying most of it.

It was a miracle that Dawn wasn't hurt badly. She climbed out of the wreckage of her room to see the pilot of the heli-fighter pull himself out of the wreckage. He was dressed in a strange steel suit. Dawn helped him up, finding the metal warm and soft to the touch. 'Thank you young lady, now please run before Starscream comes back around.' He ordered in a shaky but urgent voice. She was about to ask what was happening when the blue white and red jet flew over and fell apart.

For a moment Dawn thought it had exploded and dove for the ground but there was no sound. Rolling on her back she saw a giant man shaped thing, that was made from plane parts, point some sort of barrel that was attached to its arm. 'Surrender the prototype or I will vaporise the fleshing!' It's high pitched voice was almost gloating.

In the years to come Dawn would never truly know why she did what she did in those moments. Without hesitation she said:- 'Don't do it.' The Slayer's sister looked straight into the giants eyes while she stood up.

The man in the metal suit stopped and looked at her 'What do you mean "Don't"? Young lady you do not even know what's happening. If I don't do as he says he will kill you!'

'If this cowered is willing to shoot me to get you to give something up then it's pretty simple who the bad guy is. Whatever it is he wants must be important for him to chase you and then threaten me. Besides that thing will kill me even if you give him what he wants.' Dawn still looked in his eyes she saw the same thing she saw in all those demons who had kidnapped her. She knew she was right, just not why.

'Should I care what you think? I will take the prototype from his broken shell after crushing you.' He swung his arm around pointing it towards the man in the suit. A purple beam of light shot out. Dawn tackled the pilot, pushing him out of the way. She, however, wasn't fast enough to save herself and saw the blast clip her right leg just above the knee.

For a second a crippling pain flashed though her, every part of her was in agony. Somehow she was stayed awake through the pain. Unable to move she watched the big robot gloat. behind it the strange helicopter shifted and parts slid together becoming a another robot, this one was without a head. The pilot jumped high into the air folding up in away no man ever could. Landing on top of the robot he had become it's head. As the two came together the first robot finally noticed them. 'Let's try this with some one your own size Starscream!' the newcomer drew and fired his gun. The hollow crack was followed by a brief roar as a small rocket exploded on contact.

Dawn was fighting the grey fuzz that clawed at the edge of her vision as the heroic robot picked her up and changed form again. Somehow sinking into a chair behind the pilot the pain finally faded and let her drift asleep.

End chapter 1


	3. Chapter 2

All Creatures Great and Small  
Directors Edition  
Chapter Two

'Life signs are barley readable. Internal damage is extreme. Without doing something radical she won't survive the night.'

'Highbrow; how could you let this happen?'

'I didn't let anything happen Hot Rod. Starscream was going to kill Gort and she jumped in the way saving both our lives!'

'This young human not only stood up to a Decepticon but saved the life of an Autobot. Ratchet, we can not let her die.'

'There isn't anything I can do Prime. I don't know how she is still alive. Just about every nerve is burnt, her neural pathways are dying one by one.'

Dawn couldn't move. The voices were distant and sounded desperate. Painfully she forced her eyes open and looked around. She was in a enormous yellow room. The walls were made of metal and she guessed they were very old. Standing a short distance away were four robots. The green one she recognised, the others were all different colours the largest was red, a deep red and it's body looked like it was made of a trucks cab the other two were around the same size as the green one. One was red again but this time mixed with orange in what looked to be a flame pattern on it's chest. The final was all white except for a red cross painted on his shoulders. 'Wh… Where am I?'

Each of the robots jumped to her side. The white one stopped at a keyboard. 'She shouldn't be awake! She can't be awake! The damage to her body is too much.'

'But she is Ratchet and now she deserves answers. My name is Optimus Prime. I am the leader of the Autobots. You were injured by a Decepticon called Starscream. This place is our home, we call it the Ark.'

'Cool, like Noah and the animals.' Optimus looked confused, for someone with out a mouth that's quite a trick she thought.

'Prime, I believe she means the famous human story about a planet wide flood.' The flame painted robot turned to Dawn, 'By the way my name's Hot Rod.'

'Mine's Dawn. Pleased to meet you.' The more she talked the worse she felt but she would not stop now.

'Well Dawn,' Ratchet turned to her 'I'm a mechanic and a doctor. I need you to help me if your going to live. What I need you to do is rest and conserve your strength. We'll be right here, if something happens I will be here. Can you do this for me?'

'I. Can. Do that.' She forced the words out and then tried a smile before falling once again into darkness.

* * *

Prime looked at the human in front of him, her face set in grim determination. She would not give up. With her very body failing she fought for a shred of life, second by second. Never had he seen such an act by one so little. 'Ratchet. The must be something you can do.' His old friend looked at him.

'Prime I feel as you do but she should already be dead. She's strong but not strong enough and there is nothing I can do.'

'Optimus, Gort has an idea. Why don't we rebuild her into a head-master?' Highbrow asked.

'What! Is he out of his mind! We don't know if a human can merge with an Autobot. We could kill her and whoever would join with her.' Ratchet was shocked at the idea.

'It is the only way and you know it' Midnight looked at Prime, pleading him to try it.

'Ratchet, do you think it would save her.' Prime wished the answer was no

'As a head-master, no. But the is something I've been working on. Humans generate power on a large scale, using the same conversion process as a target-master we could make her into what I call a power-master. An augmentation to our internal power supply and the capabilities of a head-master.'

'A power-master? You're suggesting turning this girl into a backup generator. Could it work?'

'Possibly the wouldn't be a merging of minds like a head-master but both minds will inhabit the same body.'

The more he looked at this female the more he felt something deep within his spark. It was more than respect, there was something different about her. He made a decision 'If that is the only way then we do it. But I will bond with her.'

* * *

Buffy and Xander were helping clear the rubble. Three ambulances and two fire trucks had been and gone. Leaving one more of each in case of other survivors. None of them had found Dawn. While Xander and the others had to stop Buffy kept looking. Deep inside her something was telling her it would be alright. She ignored it. Dawn was missing. The motel they left her in was destroyed by some sort of tornado out of nowhere. It was almost sunrise before Buffy fell to her knees. Everyone had searched the disaster area from top to bottom the was no sign.

Buffy couldn't stop blaming herself. It was her fault. She dragged Dawn with her on some fools errand for some unseen power and a couple of vague threats. Buffy stated crying again, lifting the same rubble back and forth. Suddenly Xander was there, he picked her up off her knees and half carried her back to the car. There she cried herself to sleep.

An old and powerful voice was waiting. In the silence of her soul he talked to her. 'Your sister is safe with my children. They need her, the world needs her. Together my spirit and The Key have the power to stop the coming darkness. No harm will come to her. This I swear to you Slayer.'

* * *

Dawn woke up again. Everything felt different, the pain was almost gone and she could think clearly now. She went over the last day in her head. Opening her eyes she saw something different. Everything was tinted green and there was a column of words scrolling down the right corner, almost too fast to read. Getting up she saw Ratchet working over a red truck cab 'Hello?'

'You're active. How do you feel?'

'Fine. Why is everything green?'

'I'm sorry, your body was dying. The only thing we could do was rebuild you.'

'Rebuild as in re-make. Like turn me into a robot?'

'Yes. I'm afraid it was the only way.'

Dawn was busy thinking of how to explain this to Buffy, 'So as a little robot is the anything I can do? like shoot lasers or turn into someone's head?'

'Well I think its best If I show you.' He picked her up in one hand and carried her over to the truck 'You see your designed to merge with Optimus Prime here.'

'I become part of him! Which part?' There were some parts she did not want to become.

'You change into a second power core when he transforms into robot mode, watch.' He put Dawn down on top of the cabin and pressed a button build into his wrist. Dawn was trying to remember something when the cab stood up, to her left the roof slid back and a head came up. Behind her the back split open and rolled forward, bringing the headlights and wheel arches around with it. Two hands slid forward where the headlights folded up. She was so amazed she almost forgot about what had felt wrong, then it came to her: The Key. If she became an engine she would power this robot with energy of The Key. Almost to herself she whispered 'Err guys. this might not be a good idea.' Dawn felt herself change, silently cursing she realised the she had folded up into a box. 'This is a VERY bad idea guys!'

'Is something wrong?' Prime asked while he lifted her up off his shoulder.

'Yes something is very wrong! I'm not a normal human' Dawn finally overrode the transform order and switched back to having two legs and two arms again. something about the big guy told her she could trust him and before she knew it she was telling them all about The Key.

The giant looked at her sceptically. 'Its true.' Dawn insisted. 'I was made human to hide from this hell-Goddess who wanted to use me to rip down the walls between the dimensions.'

Ratchet took a scanner and pointed it at her. 'I don't detect any extra power and i didn't find anything when I was rebuilding you.'

'Its trans-dimensional. I'm telling you the truth.'

'Are you sure?' Prime was detecting something beyond the normal visual range but he thought that was normal for a Power-master.

'Yes positive. If I become your engine you will be powered by the universe itself!' She almost pleaded

'There is no way that such power could be contained within you. The human body, even yours that somehow could withstand a null ray blast, couldn't hold nearly that much power.'

'Don't be to hasty Ratchet. The matrix is also a trans-dimensional power, in this case wisdom, and you yourself proved that the human mind could hold more data than it should. Perhaps she is some thing more than human, It would explain how she survived so much damage. There is only one way to find out.' With that he fianlly put her down on the ground and opened up his chest.

Dawn saw him pull out a blue crystal in some sort of silver cage, the crystal's glow dancing like it was always catching a new flash of light. Its deep blue light slowly filled the room, in response The Key's green energy cascaded out of her eye's just as brilliantly.

* * *

Prime pulled out the Matrix of leadership. He could feel it dancing in his hands like never before when it shot a pure pulse of light straight at the human girl. She responded with a bright green beam that shot from her optics. Mixing the two colours burned together into a brilliant white. That was the last thing he saw before the lights overloaded his optical systems.

On the Ark's bridge Ironhide was monitoring the security sensors when a flash of multi-coloured light fried his own sensors.

Five miles from the Ark a small bird watched as the mountain literally exploded in green and blue light.

On the other side of the planet night became day.

* * *

Just out side the orbit of Pluto a rogue planet saw a beacon of blue and green. In that instant He knew fear, In desperation He sped up. Hoping to get there before the full power was ready…

End chapter 2


	4. Chapter 3

All Creatures Great and Small.  
Directors Edition  
Chapter 3

Buffy woke up. Everything around her was a dancing mix of blue and green. She got out of the car, looking at the world around her in detached wonder. Deep in side she felt something akin to pure joy. Whatever was happening was good. The moments turned into years when all too suddenly the glow faded and the world returned to normal.

Xander looked at Buffy she had the same smile on her face as everyone else, including himself. 'Do you have any clue what that was?'

The smile grew several notches; 'No I can tell you it was good and important but you already knew that.'

Actually he didn't. 'Those T.V crews haven't left yet. Lets ask them.'

'You think they know something?'

'Sure. T.V. knows everything.'

Buffy looked at him and actually laughed 'Xander!' He smiled back, it was a long time since he saw his friend laugh like that.

* * *

Just a short distance from them lay a small, purple, old fashioned cassette player. Over looked and ignored by most as part of the rubble no one saw the long metallic tendrils that stretched from its sides. They were monitoring the crash site, little cameras and sensors scattered across what was left of the building watching the humans search attempts. Two of them were next to the young human adults. Curious the two sensors followed the pair like metallic snakes.

* * *

Within the Ark Ratchets optics reactivated. Shortly after so did his higher brain functions. He found himself lying against the wall. A quick diagnostic told him that there was no damage, getting up he looked for Prime and the girl. Standing before him was someone the size of Omega Supreme, painted a mix of green and blue it looked a bit like Prime but this transformer had a set of steel wings, more armour and seemed to be a lot leaner and more powerful. From the looks of things it was also deactivated.

Slowly its eyes glowed, showing Ratchet he was active. 'Prime?'

Its voice was strange, almost like Prime's but different. 'In a sense my son, I am Optimus Primus.' Ratchet was shell shocked; Primus was the name of his god and ultimate creator.

'W… what happened? Where is the girl, Dawn?'

'They merged. The power of The Key and The Matrix now both reside within me. In a strange sense Miss Summers and Optimus Prime are my components and my parents while I am an aspect, an amplified echo of the original Primus.'

'She was telling the truth?'

'As far as she knew it, yes.'

Ratchet was still routing this information through his logic, and sanity, processor chips when just about the entire Autobot army burst into the lab. 'Prime; are you alright?' 'What the…' 'What's happening?' 'Who's the big guy?' Everyone was talking at once. Finally Optimus Primus held both hands up.

'I think it's best if they explain.' His lower body opened up and he took out what looked like an engine. As he did so his colour faded into the familiar red, silver and blue of Prime. Dawn transformed back into a robot and stood up.

'That was too weird' she said holding her head.

Prime had reverted back to his normal size and shape 'I agree Dawn, very... weird.' He stopped for a moment, most likely reordering his own thoughts. 'Autobots; somehow the combination of myself and Dawn allowed the power of the Matrix and a trans-dimensional energy field know as The Key to join together and act as the catalyst for the rebirth of Primus.'

While the Autobots looked shocked a small hand was held up to knee level. 'I know I am partially responsible for this but who is Primus?' she asked

'Primus is the name of our God. Untold aeons ago he fought the daemon God Unicron, He sacrificed himself to imprison the Dark God of Destruction and then gave what was left of himself to give our kind life.'

Dawn took a step back 'Why would he do that?'

'Primus knew if Unicron ever found a way out of his prison the universe would be in grave danger. Unicron wants nothing less than total destruction of everything and everyone in the universe. Unicron was the equal to Primus, a fallen God with powers we can not imagine. Ancient evil from a time beyond imagining. The stories say that He did once destroy His own universe. The cosmos was reborn into this one that created Primus as it's ultimate guardian.'

The little power-master took another step back and looked at her own feet 'I hate to tell you this but I think he got out.'

'WHAT!'

'My sister has been having these visions things for a week now.' Dawn backed up holding her hands up in surrender. 'Telling her that something or someone is coming here. From what you just told me this Unicorn guy sounds just like it.'

Optimus looked at her. 'What do you mean visions?'

'Visions, as in messages from a higher power. I didn't want to have to tell you guys this but this world has it's own fair share of troubles. Have you guys heard of vampires, I mean the things that go bump in the night?'

'Hay babe I've spent years researching earthen culture. Your talking fairy tales little girl.' Jazz was their Earth expert. Prime told Dawn that and she laughed.

'Well their real, demons and monsters under the bed all exist. My sister is the Slayer, that means that she's been chosen to fight them and make the world safe for humans. She's the reason this worlds still here.'

Jazz looked at her 'The stories say that these monsters and things are strong and powerful, better fighters than humans. How can she fight them?'

'When she was chosen she was given powers herself. She's stronger faster and more powerful than them. some sort of grand cosmic balance thing, I don't know. We need to find her, we were looking for this volcano, and I'm just thinking we might actually be in it.'

Optimus nodded and gestured for her to carry on.

'I have to tell her where I am. She's probably turning the town upside down looking for me.'

This time he spoke up, 'Are you not old enough to take care of yourself?'

'You'd think that, but to her I'm still a baby.'

'Alright Autobots, If she's right we need to be ready. Prepare yourselves as best you can, myself and Dawn will find her sister and bring her here.'

'You'll need help Prime, and we'll all be too busy. Take Rewind and Eject with you.' Blaster opened up his deck and let them out.

* * *

Dawn watched as two large tapes unfolded and became man sized robots. One was yellow and the other red. They looked like twins, both having the same sort of face as Prime. Behind her she heard Prime transform into his truck form. 'Let's go.' He ordered revving his massive engine.

As Prime drove out of the cavern Dawn looked behind and saw what the metal caverns were part of. A starship really was buried within the volcano Buffy was looking for, its five engines pointing towards the sky.

After a few minutes Dawn had to ask something 'So after today I guess your stuck with me'

'I believe so. Is that a problem?' Primes voice came from a flashing box behind the driving wheel.

'Well no but I don't think Dawn is a good name for a kick ass 'bot. I like it but I think I need another.'

Prime laughed before one of the tapes started talking; 'Would you chose "Sunrise"?'

She shook her head at that. 'No? How about "Sunburst"?' the other one asked

'I think that works.' Prime approved

'It's good! Then from now on I'm Dawn "Sunburst" Summers.' She liked the sound off that.

* * *

'So we know that light show was seen all over the world, and because of that no one knows where it came from.' The female said.

The male looked thoughtful as he rubbed his forehead. 'Think its anything to do with your dreams?' he asked after a moment.

She answered quickly 'It has to be, but what?'

Soundwave retracted his sensor. The small human female believed she knew something about the strange energy emissions? Megatron would be interested. Transforming into his robot form he tapped one off the console switches on his abdomen and radioed Decepticon headquarters.

'Soundwave to Megatron. Prototype not recovered. Data regarding unknown energy pulse:- Possible. Request orders.'

'How possible?' His leader didn't bother to hide his anger.

'Human female. Said to have limited information. Should I investigate?'

There was a faction of a pause before; 'Bring it to me immediately, understand?'

The ruthless Decepticon leader meant failure was not an option. 'Yes Megatron.' Braking off contact Soundwave pressed a button on top of his chest. 'Rumble, Frenzy, Laserbeak, Ravage:- Eject. Operation:- Capture!'

* * *

Buffy sat on Xander's car. She had no real idea what was happening. Her dreams were a jumble of images and no matter how much she tried she couldn't sort them out. The Slayer was so focused on wringing some sense out of the mess that she didn't notice the shadow behind her. A large hand grabbed her shoulder, reacting on instinct she flung whoever it was over her head and delivered a snap-kick to the their head but it wasn't human, or even a demon. A jolt of pain shot up her leg as it contacted metal. A blocky robot, painted red and black, picked itself up and tried to punch her. It was slow but the Slayer had no intention of letting it touch her. Buffy dodged before landing a drop kick on the robot that pushed it away. It was enough for her to take stock of the situation but no where near as far as she would have liked. What was that guy made of?

Make that guy's plural. To her right Xander was wrestling with a robotic panther and a oversized bird. As usual he wasn't doing that well. She moved to help when another robot, this one blue, spun her around. It's fist changed as it reeled back and the whole arm morphed into a pile-driver before her eyes.

Even with Slayer reactions Buffy was too shocked to move as it rocketed into her chest. A normal human could have been turned inside out from that blow.

Buffy was sent flying, doing back flips and tumbling through the air. Hitting the ground she continued to roll twice more, bruising her shoulder and left arm. She ended up spread eagle on the blacktop, with a flip she was on her feet again. Spitting blood and feeling a cracked rib or three, Buffy ran back to the robot and gave him a pointed lesson in Slayer strength.

She was about to rip its head off when she felt a gun barrel pressed to her head. Looking for Xander's help, she saw him battered and bruised at the feet of the two animal robots. 'You're strong human.' Now both robots had guns pointed at her. 'But now that you've finished punching, you're coming with us.' Knuckles raw from pounding unyielding metal Buffy let her arms drop and opened her mouth...

Out of nowhere someone shouted; 'I don't think she's started yet Frenzy!' Another three robots jumped out of an approaching truck. Two looked a bit like the two who had just captured her, but they were painted differently. The third had a similar head but its body was completely different. They fired at Frenzy and blue boy.

Diving out of the way Buffy saw the two she had fought shoot back, It looked like they had forgotten about her. The two man-shaped ambushers ran for cover behind Xander's car, still firing. Buffy was suddenly picked up by the big bird 's vice like grip, it was stronger than her and hadn't forgotten.

'No you don't, bird brain.' She could have sworn she heard Dawn's voice from the odd robot out. A laser burst shot a hole in the birds wing causing it to drop her and crash.

* * *

Dawn smiled behind her face mask. Her first shot, ever, and she nailed the target. 'Yes' she cheered, pumping the air. A metallic growl aimed at her came from the right. panning around she fired wildly at the big cat that was coming at her. Dawn was trying not to hit Xander behind the charging mechanical black cat.

Her two companions were fighting tooth and nail with the already damaged Decepticon tape-men, no help there. The cat ran at her, dodging this way and that from her shots. She knew she couldn't hit him, he was too fast, but Dawn didn't back off. Letting him get closer was a risk she had to take, then he jumped right at her…

Buffy saw it happen. Inches from impact the silver and blue robot scissors-kicked the panther mid flight. When as the panther got up, the other one pivoted on it's heal and roundhouse-kicked it to the floor again in a shower of sparks and dirty oil. Both were moves she had taught Dawn less than a week ago. She could hear it, no she, Buffy could hear Dawn laughing! Dawn was inside that robot? Looking around she saw that the other robots were defeated and running for it. Going out on a limb she shouted 'Dawn what's going on?'

'We just saved you and Xander from four Decepticons Buffy. Oh by the way that's Rewind and that's Eject.' She pointed at the flanking robots who nodded to Buffy.

Xander got up. 'Am I dreaming or does that robot have Dawn's voice?'

'It's me Xander.' Buffy watched as the green plate over Dawn's eyes slid into her helmet and the one covering her mouth and nose split in two and fell back into the sides. Dawn was laughing 'So what do you think of the new me?'

End Chapter 3


	5. Chapter 4

All Creatures Great and Small  
Directors Edition  
Chapter 4

Buffy looked at her sister. 'What the hell happened to you?!?'

'The same thing that's about to happen to you. Get over here, NOW!' Dawn dived behind Xander's car, firing her gun above Buffy's head. Xander didn't stop as he joined her and the other two behind the damaged car. Buffy looked over her shoulder as she ran to them, a twenty foot tall robot was bringing its rifle around. Just as she ducked behind the car Buffy could feel the heat from the laser blasts splintering the pavement.

'I take it that daddy isn't happy that you three just aced his little buddies.'

'That's putting it nicely human. What are they doing here and why are they after you two?' One of what Buffy guessed was the good guy's quipped.

'We don't know, they just attacked. It might be some thing to do with that light show. Buffy, is it?'

'Why do you keep asking me? No, I don't think so. Dawn what is going on?' Buffy flinched as another blast exploded against the car, sending it into the air for a split second.

The five of them looked to each other and ran for the wrecked building. 'A better question;' Xander asked.' Is where did all the emergency teams and TV people disappear to?'

'We are being shot at by a 18 foot tall robot from another planet. We were also hiding behind a car to stop him from hitting us. Another robot is about to smash him into pieces.

'As for Tv maybe they found some missing turtles to interview. Watch this!' Dawn pointed at the truck cab she and her two new friends had jumped out of. It was coming straight for them. Buffy watched as the front fell forward and a hatch opened on its' roof.

Being the Slayer for the better part of seven years had introduced her to a lot of strange and weird things. But never had she imagined a red truck cab change into a robot while jumping over her head. Everyone watched as it flew over them and punched the other one into the next state.

Dawn quietly laughed at the shape of Buffy's face. 'Thanks Prime! Mind giving us all a lift back to The Ark?' she glanced up. The Decepticon Tape deck had, with his little minions, flown away. Probably back to wherever their base was.

'Of course not Sunburst, get in.' he switched back to cab mode and opened the door for them.

Xander finally blinked. Buffy's face twisted some more and the two cassettes just looked at them. Somewhat absently Xander joked that five people wouldn't fit in the cab. 'Not a problem. Boys, would you mind transforming please.' Dawn held out her hands and the two brothers shrunk as they changed back into tapes, only this time they were the size of a normal cassette. Xander decided at that point to faint while Buffy stared at Dawn and the tapes on the dashboard during the silent drive back to The Ark.

* * *

Just passing Saturn the rogue planet passed through the outer edge of its rings. Even at this distance it's awareness scanned the surface of the third planet. There was so much life on this rock that if He was able to stop his foe He would gorge on the life energy and be, for a time, sated. If He could once again defeat his long time foe.

* * *

Xander was first of all embarrassed. He blamed it on too many shocks and the fight earlier but he still fainted when he saw two robots, Rewind and Eject, shrink into small tapes. The big red dude, Optimus Prime, had just finished describing Unicron. A year ago now he had "helped" stop the mad god Glory from destroying the universe. This sounded worse. One of the oldest of the old gods, not mad, not out of control, driven solely to destroy existence. 'From Buffy's dreams and Prime's description,' Dawn explained as one of the Autobots tweaked a panel on her back with something like a wrench. 'Unicron has found a way around the prison Primus made and is coming here.'

Buffy looked from her sister to Optimus 'So why didn't this Primus just destroy Unicron in the first place?'

'The battles between the two Gods were massive. It is told that whole planets were vaporised, suns were snuffed out and whole galaxies as the two of them fought. Even worse was that Primus wasn't certain he could defeat the dark one.' Prime was sitting at the table they were sanding on. His face plate moving and the two lighter parts of his eyes flipping between the three of them; himself, Buffy and Dawn.

'Sort of like squashing ants when you fight over an ant hill?'

'Exactly Mr Harris. Primus imprisoned both himself and Unicron in an effort to stop the accidental destruction of those he wished to protect.'

Buffy snapped on him 'And now the rematch will take place on Earth! What if we become "accidentally" destroyed?'

'Miss Summers, this is not the only inhabited world. At the risk of sounding callus, if this world is destroyed to save the countless others then it is with a great sorrow that it must be sacrificed.'

Xander made a quick decision, one he had often wondered would he be able to make again. 'The human race gone for the greater good. I'm sorry but I can't stand by and watch it happen. I agree…'

'Xander!!!'

'I haven't finished Buffy. I agree that it must be done but I can not let you fight without help. Whatever I can do to help I will.' In the years that followed meeting Buffy, fighting vampires and other demons he had done things he never dreamed of. Now he was throwing himself in the battle between good and evil again. This time on a scale he couldn't even imagine.

'You beat me to it, every thing he said goes the same for me. I was chosen to defend this world but the universe is more important. I'd like to save both if we could though.'

'Alexander Harris, Buffy Summers. I once thought that humans were a simple selfish race. While Sunburst has shown me that you can be stronger than us in spirit you have shown me that your race can match us in conviction. I think I will never understand humans. If your kind is destroyed the galaxy will lose a truly unique race. Unfortunately there is nothing more you or anyone else can do.'

'What about this merging thing, you said that Dawn was now a part of you. Could we do the same?'

'I do not believe so. We both are vessels for trans-dimensional energy. You are not. It may be possible for you to bond with other Autobots if you want, only not in powermaster form.'

'That might not be a bad idea, hey Xander imagine the damage I can do to demons with a robotic suit of armour on!'

'It could be cool, I just don't like being a battery that's all. Reminds me to much of The Matrix.'

'What did you say?'

'Sorry big guy. Not your Matrix I'm talking about the film with the leather coats and guns' Xander didn't know how "human" these Autobots were but Prime's laughter was a good sign.

'Then you might want to become a head or target-master.'

'A what and a what?' Buffy was still perfecting her confused look

'A Headmaster is when you have the ability to become a transformer's head, while a Targetmaster is their weapon.' Prime smiled at them. Xander wasn't sure how without a mouth he could do that, but he did.

* * *

'Dawn! We need to talk.' Buffy caught her sister just outside the briefing room.

Sighing Dawn tuned around. She had hoped to get out of there before Buffy had a chance to catch up. 'Yes Buffy?'

'What happened just then, Is that what you did? How could you agree to fight without asking me first?'

Dawn looked down on her older sister. 'I got shot by an oversized geek with a ray gun Buffy. I need this suit until my body heals, I though I might as well help out when I can. You guys weren't slow on volunteering, why should I be?'

'You haven't finished school yet, that's why not!'

'You were fighting demons my age...'

'What; two?'

'Low blow much?'

Her sister grabbed her by the arms 'Dawn, you haven't lived yet. I said I'd show you the world...'

'Yep; five minutes at the bronze then a quick lesson on fighting. Good job'. Shaking Buffy's grip easily Dawn flashed two thumbs up in a perfect imitation of Spike. 'That's not the world Buffy, that's no even a corner. Look at you, you fight to save the world but forget what your saving. '

'That's not true.'

'Of course it is. You don't live, your whole life evolves around slaying. Your a weapon Buffy, now so am I. The only difference between the two of us is I know what I'm fighting for. Do you?' With that Dawn walked calmly away.

On her display she switched to a back view. Xander had taken Buffy's hand and stopped her following. Not for the first time Dawn silently thanked him for being a rock beneath Buffy's feet and left.

* * *

Optimus Prime watched from the table, his advanced audio pickups hearing everything. You did it again. Involved children in our war.' Ratchet accused him.

'Old friend; if they are going to inherit this universe don't you think they should have some say in it?'

The gruff medic hadn't thought of that, Optimus watched the idea sink in, nodded and silently left himself

* * *

By evening Buffy and Xander had decided to become Targetmasters and Headmasters, respectively. Both their soon to be partners had already agreed and they were about to tell Dawn and Prime. Walking through the massive silent doors they saw the two watching a monitor screen the size of a house.

On it was a broadcast of live news '… just about to pass Mars. The rogue planet is said to pass close by, scientists believe that it may not hit but that the damage to our world could mean disaster. Once again; a planet almost the same size as our own is passing through our solar system, we have an image from the Hubbell space telescope to show you now. My God… it's… what is…?'

A huge orange and yellow planet was shown. There were two curved, yellow, spires facing the camera. To Buffy they looked like pincers or claws. In between them was a huge crater like a gaping mouth rimmed with jagged mountains.

Prime and Dawn looked at each other. This was Unicron. The size and shape of a planet. Prime could only mutter one thing. The title of Unicron, something he had not said to his smaller friends. 'The world eater.'

End chapter 4


	6. Chapter 5

All Creatures Great and Small.  
Directors Edition  
Chapter 5

' "The world eater"? Is that what you call that thing?' Buffy looked at the screen, it still showed the rogue planet in the corner and the news anchor was stumbling on every other word.

'No Buffy we call that thing Unicron. He actually eats planets, He must have found a way around his prison. Just as we theorised ' Prime wasn't looking at her. His voice was afraid. This giant of power was scared, who wasn't?

Another Autobot, this one a mix of white and grey, called Wheeljack ran in. 'Prime, the general is asking to see you. He's got his first team with him.'

Xander caught her eye and whispered; 'Think it's too late to emigrate?'

Optimus Prime turned around. 'What channel is he calling on?'

'No channel Prime, an earth transport helicopter just landed outside.' Prime considered his options, the treaty he entered with this continent's primary government demanded he told them the truth.

'Sunburst, come with me please. We have to explain what is happening to them as well.'

'Oh fun the Air Force.' Sunburst jumped from the seat back onto his shoulder. Together, Prime strode to the entrance.

'How did you know what we were talking about?'

'I'm not sure but I think it's the same way you believe me and the guys about vamps and I know all about the Decepticons. I think that when we merged we shared thoughts.'

'You believe that we could have the shared knowledge of each other! How did you come to…'

'…that conclusion? Well the fact that I can suddenly shoot a gun like a pro is one thing and the fact that we aren't talking to each other.'

'Not talking? Prime stopped just before the final door out of The Ark. 'Telepathic communication! By Primus you're right.' Smiling he decided to shock her, 'not just a pretty face then?' silently laughing they both wondered what the consequences could be.

* * *

Buffy watched them leave. 'Wheeljack, what General?'

'General Hammond. A few years ago we came in contact with a USAF project who's goal was to protect the Earth. We help them defend your planet and in return they keep our presence hidden from your public.'

'The government knows that you exist?' Buffy wondered just how many secret organisations there were out there.

'Yes they do. They are silent to keep your people from panicking and have used their influence to disguise our presence from the media at large.

'I've been told that you two want to become Human companions to two of us. Has anyone agreed to join with you?'

Buffy smiled 'I talked with Prowl and we decided to partner up, with me as a Targetmaster.' She was certain that if he had a "normal" face it would be surprised. As it was he almost took a step back, his six sided eyes widening.

Xander spoke up 'I talked with the Dinobots, their leader was injured wasn't he?'

'Yes Grimlock took a shot to his head, we've been unable to… Are you saying you want to become Grimlock's head?'

'A huge robotic T-Rex? I can see myself riding on into battle, It would be so cool.'

'Well, it would be interesting. Grimlock is not one of the worlds greatest thinkers. Are you both sure, neither of those two are the most rounded individuals. Grimlock is as thick as a Cybretronian sludge river and Prowl's hero is that human with the pointed ears on Star Trek. He's a great tactician but logical to a fault, the last human he talked with almost made him burn out his processors.'

'No problem, Buffy is as logical as anyone and I'm just as stupid.' Buffy hid a grin at that. She could tell she was going to have a lot of fun.

* * *

Looking out from the red planet Unicron felt the dormant presence of his nemesis. It permeated the rocks, the sea, the very air with a stain of wholesome nobility and compassion. It sickened him to think that someone so flawed was a threat. Changing his form into that pale shadow of his former self he breathed in deep from the barely alive red rock he floated past. Then compressing it in his vast bulk he started to speak...

* * *

By the time Prime and his new friend had finished Jack O'Neill didn't know what to do. These guys could wipe the floor with anyone else out there. Carter had almost killed herself when she first tried to understand the laser cannon the Autobots had lent them. She had locked herself in her lab and promised to stay there until she had answers. After three days they were finally able to drag her out by her ankles. With blue Jell-O and the doc's needles they kept her out long enough to give the gun back and then get back to the job of saving the planet.

Now they were talking about metaphysics (whatever that was) and their Gods. Daniel had the same smacked-across-the-head-with-a-wet-sock look Carter got when playing with their gadgets. That could only be a very bad thing, Jack was about to save Daniel the trouble of a coma and ask what they could do about the problem when the sound hit him.

The ground moved beneath his feet and his lungs acted like a sounding board. A blast of hot air crushed him down like a massive weight and he could feel his ears start to bleed 'PRIMUS I AM WAITING FOR YOU! TODAY WE FIGHT AGAIN. FACE ME COWARD!' The whole world shook at the terrible challenge. Trees exploded, rocks shattered off the mountain side and from his position, flattened to the ground, he could see the dust and rocks bouncing like ants with every word.

With a darkness clawing the edge of his vision Colonel Jack O'Neill of SG1 looked at the two robots as they nodded to each other. Blacking out he thought he saw the same light he had a few hours before...

* * *

Dawn was glad she was encased in armour, otherwise she would have been in the same state as the people at her feet. Bleeding and unconscious. Looking at Prime she didn't need to say anything as neither of them would, or indeed could, back down from that destiny. Primes gut plate slid open as Dawn transformed back into the super charged engine. She didn't blackout, the light simply overrode every part of her. She became nothing more than an observer within the entity known at Optimus Primus as the light washed over her young mind.

* * *

Reaching out he felt that every human on the planet had been hurt. Its fragile climate shaken from the blast of particles Unicron had used. Only his children remained, both Autobots and Decepticons. Optimus Primus straightened his shoulders, locking them in place and turned to The Ark. 'My children; this world is defenceless against the greed of your cousins. You must protect the innocents and stop the Decepticons from destroying more of this world.' He needn't use the radio. The Autobots would hear his whispered words a galaxy away.

Ironhide was the first out, his rifle drawn and ready. 'You got it Primus. Come on guys, lets bust some Decepti-creaps.' At his gesture a convoy of mismatched cars, trucks, planes, and various other craft streamed out of the golden cave and into the open, vulnerable, world.

Primus smiled behind his face plate, his children had done well. Now it was his turn, calling the planet's vast energies to his aid he used his own awesome potential He jumped. He jumped far out of the planets atmosphere staring down Unicron. He was no bigger than a flea to the monstrosity, with a simple thought he grew. Ignoring the laws that bonded the universe he grew ever larger until he matched the titanic Unicron. Face to face with his ancient foe the God of Protection looked upon the Devourer of Worlds. No fear met his gaze, just raw confined aggression and hunger.

Strangely deep within him that which was Optimus Prime was awed while that which was Dawn "Sunburst" Summers was calm, She knew from experience that shock would not help. Following her example he relaxed into the fight and let the handful of lessons taught by the Earth's guardian Slayer take over.

Unicron lashed out, clawing at his eyes. Primus let himself drift backwards in the silent vacuum of space. Unicron's opening blow missed and faced his archenemies' right fist. Primus held himself in place with his will alone as he connected. There was nothing to stop him Unicron from tumbling into the red world. With the small planets twin moons in each hand the guardian God landed on is opposite and broke both orbs upon the horned head of Unicron. The very solar system reduced to nothing more than weapons in their war.

* * *

Never had Unicron had to fight like this. Primus was cold, his blows calculated and beyond powerful. The green and blue clad champion of everything Unicron abhorred was stronger than ever before and even more skilled. Yet had Unicron to even touch him while his own injuries were astounding. 'Enough is enough!' In desperation He called forth his chain mace and finally was able to hit his foe. Again the titan swung and again the charged energy ball crashed into Primus. This time finally beating him off the planet and towards one of gas giants. Confident of victory he strode across the heavens towards Primus.

* * *

Primus was not ready for the weapon and was surprised by it but he was far from defeated. Prime's rifle was part of him. Pulling it out from its' holster across his back he morphed it into a quarter-staff. Catching the chain around the shaft he pulled the monster towards him once again. Tumbling into each other Primus roundhouse kicked Unicron backwards and then yanked him forward like a yo-yo. Unicron's grip was lost and both weapons were lost to the ageless storm raging deep in the gas planet. Not stopping he flattened his hand and pushed it trough the demonic chest plate. Sparks and fires lit up in the thin atmosphere that clung to both of them.

* * *

Pain was Unicron's friend. Pain is what he lived for. Inflicting it, not taking it Wincing at the agony in his chest Unicron pushed against the arm that held his insides. More sparks and fire. The arm broke with a grinding sound. Unicron grinned, laughing as he forced the arm out of himself and floated away. The ancient God that wanted nothing more than the silence of everything gloated in the stand off.

* * *

Primus met Unicron's glare. Showing no trace of pain the Guardian Of Life in the universe reconnecting his elbow. In a brutally sharp move oversized pistons slid back into their place, cogs and gears snapped together and the mystical energies that awoke him healed the damage. In that moment Primus realised He was the ultimate combination of the technological and the mystical, organic and metal, mind and spirit. Nothing within this universe was a match for him and Unicron was about to see just why.

Through the Key Primus could see every dimension. Every heaven, every hell and every parallel world. With a thought he called forth those other dimensions to help. Instantly he was everywhere. Each possibility played out a thousand different ways. Each one right there and then. Countless shots from mega-sized pulsar cannons. Countless punches, kicks and body slams. For that terrible instant every possible reality existed right there and then. The mighty will of Primus the only thing holding them all in check.

* * *

Buffy had quickly recovered from the pounding shout that had grounded everyone else and watched the fight unfold on the giant computer screen. Xander was still out of it, down at her feet. She didn't know if she wanted Primus to win to save the world or selfishly just to save her sister and friends but when the God Primus ripped the universe apart she felt it.

There were very few times in her life Buffy could clam to feel the Slayer as part of her, that was one of those times. It wasn't right, a deep knot of could only be described as "wrong" settled in the pit of he stomach. In years to come she could say that she had felt the universe wince at what happened in that moment.

All too slowly, in the blink of an eye the moment was over. The blue, red and green robot stood alone, his doubles sent back across the multi-verse and Unicron was pretty much vaporised. Buffy swallowed as on its own the screen zoomed in. She could see every crack, rivet and seam on the robotic God's features and for an instant the robot looked at Earth. His eyes shrunk to slits, a dull grey plate slid down and Buffy realised he was frowning. That instant he vanished.

* * *

Optimus Primus stood outside the abandoned construction site. The almost finished building had been damaged by the environmental chaos that had now subsided. The planet was devastated, across its fragile surface billions of innocent lives crawled aimlessly looking for answers. Worst still were those that had answers, that were to use them cruelly against the innocent.

And amongst all this life, something else. Primus could see the movements beneath this peaceful, troubled, place. Both physically and dimensionally. Deep beneath his feet a dimensional cross roads was about to experience it's first 'Rush Hour' in thousands of millennia. The great evil was ready and seizing this chance to bring the real demons back. Deep within his mind Sunburst told him the stories of true demons, their size, their power. Humanity on it's own could not stop them and neither could the Autobots. But together, with the Slayer and her friends they would, could be able to stop hell on Earth. Nodding Primus transported himself back to the volcano base with a thought.

The devastated town of Sunnydale was left behind.

End Chapter 5


	7. Chapter 6

All Creatures Great and Small  
Chapter 6  
Directors Edition

Slowly all over the planet humans awoke to a world damaged buy the onslaught of Unicron's voice. Through her tenuous connection Willow felt them as they saw their homes devastated. Earthquakes ravaged countries, continents were in chaos and islands like Britain and even Australia were still being battered by the tides. While most of the major governments panicked the people, almost as one, repaired what was broken. Willow could feel their fear and grief as they grimly set about rebuilding. By some miracle there were only a few deaths and very few major injuries.

For days the world got on by, trying to fix itself. Everyone dealt with their own little part adding together as a whole. Willow and Giles spent a good two days repairing Giles' home and then they moved to the stables. They were trying to get one of Giles's horses into it's home when it lashed out and kicked him to the floor. She was helping Giles up when Willow fell to her knees. Claws of dread pulled her down. Deep, deep down. Far beneath this dimension a great force gloated, a sickening sound full of barely disguised malice and glee. A darkness clutched the earth at her feet, the soft hay snapped like brittle twigs. 'Giles,' she gasped. The Watcher cradled her as she looked past the cracked glasses and into his eyes…

* * *

Xander rode on the back of the enormous silver dinosaur flexing his hands inside his new suit. They needed everyone they could find and Wills was one of those people. Grimlock flew over the Atlantic as super sonic speeds. They were so low that radar wouldn't detect them. Behind him Xander saw the disappearing coastline and the trail left by the two dinobots . With a thought he linked up with one of the many Autobot satellites still in orbit and started them searching for Westbury and his oldest friend.

* * *

'The Hellmouth? Are you sure Willow, it could have been a bad dream.' They were sitting in the study. Old books and papers lined the walls once again and Willow pulled her self up from the leather chair.

'No Giles. I felt it, it has teeth and it wants to start eating. When did I dream standing in a sables at 2 o'clock in the afternoon?' Willow asked as he started to clean his glasses, making numerous apologetic noises. Standing up he went for the phone. After a few grunts and a muttered curse he turned back to her.

'Worth a chance, the phones are still out. Whatever is happening could be the end of the world and we're stuck on the wrong side of the planet with no way back.'

By sunset the two of them had finished feeding the horses and they sat outside discussing what they could do. The coven was busy healing the mystical damage that they described as the death of a God, though some times they exaggerated. So a quick teleport spell was out of the question. Willow was in no shape to do that on her own. She had tried a couple of message spells, even using a scurrying mirror and vision portals but it was as if Buffy and the gang weren't home.

So now the two of them looked out at the land surrounding them. Some of the older trees were damaged but, as all living things, they would recover. With no way to contact or even find Buffy and the rest of the gang they were stuck in England, travel was just as out of the question as phones or E-mails. Willow was about to suggest going inside when the trees started moving.

* * *

Giles heard Willow gasp and saw her pointing at a small army coming from the trees. Most looked human and were wearing burlap brown habits, with them was a fair number of horned demons. Giles recognised them as Fyarl demons, something he had become over two years ago. As one, once they were out of cover, they charged.

Willow and Giles had barely enough time to close the door behind them before the attackers reached them. Bolting and barricading the door they tried to gather weapons but some of the humans came through the windows.

Their eyes were cut out with what looked like crude Greek letters, taking a swing with a hat stand Giles recognised them; 'Bringers!'

* * *

Xander saw what was happening in front of him and was glad Buffy had suggested they go in teams of two 'Swoop, Big Grim you two stop those little S.O.B's from getting in. I'll help inside.' Coming over the large house Xander stood up and jumped the 25 feet to the ground. Grimlock landed on the other side of the building, stomping several demons into mulch.

'Grimlock stomp S.O.B's!'

'Leader Grimlock. Stomp good!' Swoop dive bombed the army, wing mounted lasers sowing the ground with deep rivets.

Laughing Xander burst into the war zone. The room was quiet as everyone, who could, was looking at the two metal dinosaurs out the window as they stamped and bombed the hundred or so attackers. Willow and Giles were down and about to be dead. While they were distracted Xander activated his built in weapons.

A hatch above his left wrist opened to reveal two short barrels and his right flicked open into a crosspiece for a short sword. The sound attracted some attention, when Xander's energon blade charged up everyone noticed him.

* * *

For a change Giles wasn't unconscious, however Willow was. On his back he had a limited view of the rescuer as it strode into the fray. Whatever the metal contraption was it knew how to fight, if only barely. It's kicks and punched were sloppy but still able to floor a demon. Weapons bounced off it as what Giles could swear was a lightsabre cut through walls and people alike. When it had half a chance, it let rip with rapid firing pulses of orange light. Those demons that were smart enough to retreat were cut down in the slaughter outside. The Bringers on the other hand were fanatical to the point of idiocy, some charging the sword head on and others actually attacking the impossible metal beasts outside.

Giles got up and joined the robot at Willows side as the battle outside slowed down. It's face was silver but human looking and it wore a gold coloured helmet with yellow eye pieces. That colour scheme was continued all over. There was something about it that was familiar, but quite what he didn't know.

* * *

Faith looked around, she had "volunteered" with the rest of the inmates to repair the prison. Some of the girls had gotten out but not many, the guards had taken up shooting those that tried. They said they were trying to wound but they were killing more than anything else. They were such suck shots Faith believed them about not trying. Anyway she had no reason to escape.

It was the end of the day and she was taking a quick run around the exercise yard under the watchful eyes of the shotgun toting guards. An old 80's model sports car stopped just before the fence wall in front of her. Someone in a long black over coat got out and waved. Faith jogged up to them, a look around showed the guards were on a coffee break or something, no way her luck was that good. Faith was ready for a hit or worse, it wasn't the first time someone had paid for some "quality time", just the first Faith had the honour. The other person pulled down their hood. 'Hi Faith. Long time.'

'B? what you doing here? And like this.' Glancing around she saw that there was still no one watching. The blond's boy-toy must have pulled some serious strings to make this happen.

'Faith I've got an offer for you.'

'An offer? What can I do from inside jail? Beside ask stupid questions.' Buffy was hiding something beneath her oversized coat. Knowing their history either a knife or a body-swap thingy. The other Slayer looked bigger than before, and bulkier but not that much older.

'The end of the world is coming F, not that unusual really but we need help. I'm going to be too busy and we need another Slayer. Your name came up.'

'Must have been a real long list.' Faith muttered sarcastically. 'I failed B. I batted for the wrong team and almost scored a home run. I don't need to tell you what happened, we both know that I'm not fit to be the Slayer. You're out there, it's your job.'

'My job hasn't changed, nether has yours. You came here because you thought you had to. Hell, when you killed that guy you were so eaten up inside you lost everything. It was an accident. This is one way to make it right, the other is to be out there kicking demon ass. You've tried this now try the other. You in jail isn't helping anyone and I can't stop the legions of hell on my own.'

'Nice speech blondie.' She wanted it to be sarcastic but it came out kinda weak. The other woman had pushed every button and every doubt Faith had while in the joint. 'Where you learn to speak like that?'

Buffy sighed 'Little sis gave me something to think about a while ago.'

Faith didn't want to guess what that meant 'I'd love to help but I'm locked up in here. Even if I could get out I would just be hunted down and put right back.'

'Not if you crossed the state border. I have it on good authority that once your outside of California you won't be found, or looked for.'

'What?'

'Look I've already organised it. If we can get you out of the state the won't be a problem. Even if a warrant is issued, and that's a big if, we can meet up with the guys in Sunnydale and help you find some redemption.'

'If I can't find any I'm coming right back. Alright B but how do we me get out. This fence is too high to jump and the tops got more juice than the OJ factory.'

Buffy smiled. The Slayer reached out, she was wearing a space aged gauntlet. With only a twist she ripped the full wall of fencing from the ground. Without stopping she grabbed Faith with another space age arm and ran towards the car.

The car's doors opened in there own and the pair dived in. Somewhere the guards had woke up and were pelting the road with buck shot. 'Got the meeting but couldn't spring for a release?' Faith asked.

'Good guess.' Buffy tossed her long coat out of the window. She was wearing some sort of full body armour that matched the yellow and black of the gauntlets.

The car took off like a rocket, she glanced to the diver but there was no one there 'I guess we have a lot to talk about.' said Buffy as she put on a weird helmet.

* * *

Dawn had sat outside the Hyperon for almost two days now. There had been no sign of Angel or Cordy. It looked like a tallish dark skinned man and a pale, thin, girl were the only two to live there. Dawn ran over the plan once again, always watching the door for something other than the two she'd been following.

After he had returned Primus separated into Prime and herself. It took the Autobots time to get back and the others to recover. Once that had happened they met on the main bridge. That blond Major was jumping around looking at and into everything in sight, the Colonel was having to order her to stop every few minutes. Prime had asked Ironhide, the Ark's chief of security, and Prowl, his chief advisor, to join them. Dawn had asked for Blaster to be there, monitoring for any signals that might be important, and Jazz to help with his knowledge of Earth's cultures. She also suggested, quite firmly, that Buffy and Xander join them.

After Prime and Dawn had explained what The First was to both the Autobots and the USAF they then told them all what was coming. Dawn stared 'Old ones guys. You know vampires and the like are only shadows right, just about every demon still on Earth is, to some point, mixed with humans. True demons are worse. I've only seen one once, that guy was nothing compared to what is coming. The point is without the Autobots we are all bite sized snack food.'

'When did you see one?' Xander asked

'Back when me and Buffy were on that nut job's tower of Xander like construction.' She smiled sweetly at him.

'But they are also very powerful,' Prime got back to the point. 'Even our energy weapons might not be good enough. We will need to use basic close combat equipment or large scale artillery, anything less might not kill them out right. Demons are incredibly resilient so we need to cause massive damage in a short time frame.'

'Why don't we just nuke this "Hellmouth" and close it for good.' Colonel O'Neill asked.

'Wouldn't work. The Hellmouth could just absorb that much power and open even wider. Or worse, cracking open the very fabric of reality over an already unstable rift could force this universe to be born again. Another big bang, right on the doorstep to L.A. We have to be careful because high explosives won't work either, Sunnydale sits astride the weakest point of the San Andras fault line. "Boom, crack, what happened to the west coast?"' Dawn explained

'We Autobots have the best chance of stopping them but the Decepticons are sure to attack at the worst possible moment. We will have to divide our forces temporally.' Prime laid out the plan they came up with. 'The bulk of the Autobot army will stay here while myself, Sunburst, her two companions and a select handful of Autobots gather their allies and deposit them back in Sunnydale. Stargate Command puts the entire west coast on full alert, but try to keep it secret from the general public. A panic would not serve anyone. While that lot slows down The First we Autobots finish Megatron once and for all. We can't afford his interference. We recharge and head to Sunnydale with everyone we can, the wounded stay here and join us when and if they can.'

'Why hasn't this Megatron dude attack yet?' Xander asked.

Prime scratched his face plate at that point. 'He expects us to scatter, dividing our forces to help he planet. Then he'll take what he wants while our backs are turned. Right now he's most likely devising plans and trying to lull us into a false sense of security.'

'Back to the "plan" you're talking about a full scale war on two fronts, both of them long shots. You said it yourself, you haven't defeated the Decepticons in thousands of years.' Buffy was concerned, Dawn could tell from her voice so she answered;

'Buffy, with us three helping them the Decepticons don't have a chance, It's the only way and you know it. We will need everyone. Colonel I understand that with one word from you the President jumps. Can you arrange a full pardon for a murder charge?'

'I'm not sure about that Dawn. Faith is still dangerous.'

'No more dangerous than a lose cannon, Buffy. We need everything and every one we can find. If I knew where Spike was I'd bring him in too. Faith is as bad, and as good, as him. You gave Spike a chance and you still would. Do the same for her.'

'Ahem.' the greying colonel interrupted; 'This murder charge, is it real?'

Xander answered 'If you mean did she kill anyone. Yep. the first one was an accident though.'

'First one?' Doctor Jackson asked.

Dawn knew that it would be like getting blood out of a stone with her family dancing around the truth so laid it out for the SG team; 'She was hunting vampires, someone got in the way and Faith went loony from guilt. That's pretty much the "it".'

'Urm… I could just about swing it, there might be some problems but if she is important to this he might bend the rules.' O'Neill said. 'Just promise she won't kill anyone.'

Buffy shook her head. 'She confessed and she went to prison looking for redemption. Can't promise for her, what I can do is tell you she's changed.' Dawn felt that was a rare moment on honesty on her sisters behalf.

'I'll see what I can do.'

'Thank you Jack, Prime fancy a trip to L.A.?' Dawn let her face plate drop so she could beam a smile at him.

'You are not going to see Faith. On that point I will not back down' Buffy growled

'Buffy you can be so pig headed! No, you get Faith. I'll get Angel. Xander gets Will and Giles. We all meet in Sunnydale in a week. After you two have your little upgrades.'

'Well little Dawnie seams to have really grown up hasn't she.' Xander asked Buffy.

'Must have been when I wasn't looking, I only turned around for a minute.'

'Sometimes that's all it takes.'

Dawn had no intention to get into another argument with her sister about the dangers of fighting for what was right. So as soon as Prime had worked out the final points with the Colonel and his General they had driven of to L.A. This was all shortly before Buffy and Xander came out of the labs.

Dawn was bored, If she didn't get a move on she would miss the deadline. The Decepticons could attack with in the next five seconds or five weeks and she was still sitting on her cyber-butt, waiting for Cap'n Forehead. She sent a quick telepathic message to Prime before she got out and walked to the front door. The big Autobot leader didn't like it but he agreed to her idea. She got from him a feeling of impatience and concern, was she so on edge because of him? Unlike Buffy and Xander she couldn't take off her suit so she settled for opening her face plates.

'Hello?' She asked as she opened the doors

'Can I help you Miss…' It was the tall black guy. He stopped talking when he came out of the office and saw her.

Dawn pointedly ignored the stare. 'Perhaps you can, this is Angel investigations?'

'Yes. If you have a problem we can... help.' He looked her up and down. The guy didn't know what to make of a Power-Master transformer in robot mode.

'Good. I'm looking for Angel, he isn't here is he?' The big man finally moved again as he came out from around the desk, 'If he isn't in can I talk to Cordy?'

His eye's narrowing the guy answered 'They both went missing about a month back, Do you know where they are?' he had less than subtly stood right next to a large cabinet full of weapons.

'If I knew where they were I would be talking to them now wouldn't I. Boy are you the one for smart questions.' She saw him shift his shoulders, ready to brake open the cabinet when he glanced up to the balcony. Dawn had the advantage of radar and infrared sensors linked directly into her brain, someone had jumped at her. Not blinking or even looking away she stepped backwards. A dirty-blond haired young man fell to her feet. Dawn kicked him up and held him still by the scruff of his neck, still looking at the black man who now held a baseball bat that had been sharpened into a stake. 'Lets start from the beginning. My name is Dawn Summers. You may have heard of my sister. Who are you you guys?'

'Charles Gunn, your sister is Buffy the Slayer?'

'Yep and who is this?' Dawn waved the boy like a rag doll

'That's Conner. He's Angel's son'

'Son? Well that's something.' Dawn was amazed, vampires shouldn't have children. Something Buffy and Angel would have to talk about. When they found him. Her train of thought was broken when her built in sensors told her someone had come up behind her. In a instant she tossed Conner into Charles and spin kicked the axe out of the woman's hands 'What is it with this place and attacking from behind?' Slowly she picked the thin woman up and tossed her into the other two. 'So, where's Wes, under the floor? Climbing the roof? Or is he behind the counter?' Silently she wondered if she could get way with this if wasn't enhanced five ways from Sunday.

* * *

Gunn scrambled to his feet before helping Fred to hers. Conner, for once missing his usual sneer, was up too. He was fumbling for a weapon, Gunn knocked the kids hand away.

This woman/thing would probably feed it back to them both, if she was going to be nasty that feeding would likely be up their ass. 'Wes doesn't work here anymore. Whatever you think you need him for you can forget it. Listen, whatever you want to talk about will have to wait.'

'Wait? You don't seem to understand what is happening. I need Champions, warriors and sidekicks. If I can't find the brooding one and the rest of the dysfunctional trio I'll have to do with the supporting act. Get what you need to stop an apocalypse and follow me.'

Conner never did have any sense, he was up close and stareing her in the face.'We're looking for my dad and if you think we're going anywhere with you, think again.'

With one arm she pushed him the good ten foot into the wall 'Listen up kid, I don't give a damn about your dad. If he's lost we can do without his oversized forehead but I came here to get help saving the world and by Primus I will get some. Even if I have to I'll drag you all the way to Sunnydale, strapped to Prime's rear wheels.'

* * *

To say Dawn was acting wouldn't be quite true. Inside she was scared out of her mind. With no Angel the chance of failing had just risen quite a bit. Near hopeless had become totally pointless. Fortunately if this guy could jump the good 15 foot off the balcony and survive without a scratch they might have the strength they need, if not the brains or experience.

Charles stepped in 'We can't just leave. We have to find Angel and Cordy. As much as we want to help we can't. Sorry.'

Dawn clenched the handle of her hip mounted pistol but refrained from blasting a hole in him. 'Fine. Save the world or save Angel. You chose Angel. Indulge me, were does Wes live these days?'

The thin woman went to the desk and scribbled something down. 'Here, tell him I said hi' her Texan accent and slightly insane smile caused Dawn to twitch.

'Thanks.' she started to walk out just before the door she turned around again, looking at the two men pointing crossbows at her. It was only fair, she had her pistol drawn and aimed at them the same time. 'If you happen to find soul-boy or Queen C tell them to call.' Switching her face plates back up she lowered the gun and left for Prime and Wesley.

* * *

Willow slowly woke up. Blinking it took her brain a moment to catch up with what she was seeing; 'Xander!' Willow was so happy to see her friend that she didn't notice anything other than his face. Trying to hug him she found out why she couldn't see his hair. 'What happened to you?' she flicked a finger to the armour plated chest.

'Long story Will. We need your help, the Hellmouth is about to open, me and the others are going to be a little busy. We need you an the G-man to guard it until we can get there.'

'Xander, what could be more important than Hell on Earth?' Willow sat up and looked around. Giles was holding a glass in one hand and a bottle in the other. He spent his time looking from the window to the glass as he refilled it. The window was covered by something big and silver there was a single red oval in the top corner.

'Oh just the enslavement of mankind and the rampage of another army of evil. Same old same old.' While Xander joked Giles went looking for another bottle. 'Come on, you ready to save the world again?'

'Sure, it's what I live for. Giles what is wrong with you?'

'I'm hoping that if I can get drunk I won't see what's outside or at least remember it that well.'

'Why' she looked at the window again the grey thing had moved. 'What the...?

'Come on guys lets go.' Xander lightly tapped her arm and grinned. Willow watched as a steel mask slid up over his face. Willow followed him to the door with Giles and his fresh bottle. Outside were two dinosaurs. One was obviously a T-rex and the other was some sort of Taranadon. 'That's Grimlock and the other is Swoop. Both of them have seats mounted in their backs so you can hitch a ride. Get in.'

Willow snatched the bottle from Giles and took a swig. 'Xander, if we ride in them what about you.' Willow looked a Giles. Ride in them? Another swig. 'Don't worry I get a drivers seat.'

'You Xander's friends. Xander's friends are Grimlock's friends. Grimlock friend to you?'

Willow didn't expect a dinosaur to have the best vocabulary but that was stretching it. After yet another swig she responded. 'Yes I think we can become friends.'

'Red hair girl nice to Grimlock. Grimlock think we need to go back soon. Friends get inside me and Swoop. We take you to sunny place quickly.'

Giles was able to take the bottle off her and gab a quick drink before putting it down 'Then my big friends we better be off.'

* * *

Faith looked at Buffy. They had changed cars about an hour ago, while the sports car Buffy had called Jazz had set a new land speed record in getting the hell out of there they had jumped into another self driving car. This one looked like a police car and they were on their way to the Hellmouth. 'Let me get this straight. The first big bad evil is trying to raise a whole army of full blooded demons. It's my job to stop help stop them while you and your new car buddies go stop their enemies from taking advantage of the chaos of this last week.'

'You and anyone else we can gather up. When we finish with the Decepticons we can pull your asses out of the fire.'

'So what's with the Bond cars B?'

'What is a bond car and why does she insist in calling you B?' Faith looked for the speaker.

'So instead of Bond cars we have rejects from Knight rider. That's comforting.'

'Faith. Prowl is an Autobot, this police car mode is only camouflage.'

'You mean that these cars are really people? Now I know how they plan to fight demons, hit and run.'

'Not really earthling, but you will find out.'

'EARTHLING?'

* * *

Prime pulled up outside the apartment blocks just in time for Dawn to see Wesley almost drag a young woman into the boot of his car and lock her in. Still shaking from her confrontation at the hotel she decided her best course of action was to follow him.

Wesley kept an eye on the rear view mirror. That big truck was following him, he couldn't get a good view of the driver but it wasn't anyone he knew. They were too bulky and squared off. For a few minutes he debated whether to confront them or just see what they want. Deciding that he could do both he pulled up and waved to the truck to stop. Strapping a small pistol to his left wrist and picking up his pump action 12 gauge Wesley got out to have a talk with the other driver.

Dawn was new at this, and sitting inside a ten wheeled transport lorry so she wasn't surprised that Wesley noticed. She was surprised at the big gun and haggard appearance of the former watcher.

'Who ever you are, I don't like being followed. The only reason I haven't blown holes in that cab is that you were so bad at following me I don't think you're a threat. Get out.'

'All right Wes you got me' Dawn slipped out, past the door. Not even stopping he shot her in the gut.

Nothing happened

Nothing continued to happen, Wes fired another round, this time into her face.

'This could get real boring, real fast. Try that again and I will brake it over your limy head, got that?'

'What the hell are you?'

'My name is D…, Sunburst. I was Dawn Summers, Do you remember the name?'

Wes finally pointed the shotgun away. 'Buffy's younger sister? "The Rugrat"?'

'Who called me that? Never mind. The First Evil is trying to open Sunnydale's Hellmouth. Charles, Angel's son and that thin Texan, who says "hi" by the way, told me that Angel and Cordy are more important. Now before I head back down there and drag what's left of them home with me what do you say?'

'The First? You mean the original evil don't you. You're crazy if you think you can stop something like that. No I can't help, no one can. The only thing we can do is hope, you've got to be wrong.'

'Wesley I've seen it. The First has only to force the door and thousands of demons can and will come pouring out. It is possible to stop them if we make a united stand. What else is there to do, other than lock some girl in your trunk and drive around L.A.'

Wes had a sly smile 'Nothing. By the way can you see this scar.' He pointed to the large ugly knife cut just missing his wind pipe. 'That bitch I have back there cut me, later she, and Conner, sent Angel to the bottom of the sea in a welded filing cabinet. After I pick him up I'll Gunn and Fred and let them handle it. Then I can commit suicide by helping you lot. Now if you excuse me.'

'Hang on, his own son sank him to the bottom of the ocean. Right. We find him tonight, I turn Conner into hamburger and we're in Sunnydale by tomorrow afternoon. Lets get started.'

It took them a surprisingly short time to find Angel. After Janice had guided them to the right beach Sunburst had used some sort of super high-tech Sonar and GPS system to pin point where Angel was. 'Wes you think what to do with her while I drive Roller out there and pick him up'

'What's roller.'

'Who's Roller you should be asking. One moment.' She climbed to the roof of the trailer and dropped through a hatch. Wesley was having trouble thinking of this tall, invulnerable person as the shy little girl who he had met briefly four or five years ago. If she looked like this what about Buffy and Giles. What had been happening on the Hellmouth while he was playing P.I.

The back of the trailer opened and a small six wheeled jeep came out. Sunburst nodded her head and drove the jeep into the sea.

It took her quarter of an hour to get back. By then he had set Janice free. Advising her that if she thought of telling any one she would be dead long before anything happened to him. Sunburst came out of the sea ahead of the jeep that was following her like a puppy. She stood on the beach head for a moment while the jeeps built in laser flash dried her. Wesley did try to move the coffin but had little luck, she just ripped the metal apart like paper and laughed.

End chapter 6


	8. Chapter 7

All Creatures Great and Small.  
Directors Edition  
Chapter 7

Colonel O'Neill melted into the chair, for the last few days himself and his team had researched everything they could on demons, Hellmouths and magic. Carter gave up understanding it all and just spent her days muttering how impossible this all was. Teal'c and Danny were ravaging through the books at the Summers' home on all the different things that were going to go bump in the night. Meanwhile Jack had read everything the government knew, including the super-classified NID reports detailing captures and experiments they did around Sunnydale.

Four other SG teams were in town, scattered throughout the hot spots including the high school and university campus. Each had more radio equipment that the Alpha site and all were in constant contact with his team. SG1 was located in the Summers residence and was quickly setting it up as a command centre. Waiting for the others that were being collected from across the world.

There was a hiss of static from under the pile of half read reports. The ones that had made him sick just reading. 'Colonel Jack, Buffy here. We're just coming into town, be there in a few.' Jack shoved the pile as far away as he could picked up his radio from underneath it all.

Finding the button he asked 'So did everything go alright?'

'On this end? Yep, yours?' She was far too happy. Californians.

'Lets say this wasn't the first time the air force has needed a criminal to help.' He danced around why though.

'Good. Tidy up before we get there.' he looked up to Daniel who had overheard what the woman had said

'Oh' he looked around at the books and used pizza boxes. 'This could be a problem.'

* * *

Faith got out of the police car and followed B into her home. The sports car pulled up just after and spoke up; 'I'm going on a recon round the town, you coming Prowl?'

The police car revved its engine, 'I've got your back sir.' and the two driver-less cars drove off

On the way there the older Slayer had told her about everything that happened including Joyce's death and that a top secret government team were currently bunked at her home. Faith never thought that Buffy's mothers death would effect her. Sure she knew she'd feel bad but there was something more. The woman died without giving her a chance to apologise... No that was selfish, but true.

Inside the house were the four people that Buffy had described. 'Hi. The way B tells it you guys pulled the strings that got me out.' They were all on edge and the big black guy was fingering a dark green gun like thing that was strapped to his hip.

'Yes Miss Wilkins we are.' The grey haired Colonel replied.

'Then I'll need another favour. When this is done I want to go back. No questions asked, no community service just left alone and out of the way. Alright.'

'I don't understand, you want to go back to jail?' The dude with the gold emblem on his head relaxed as the others military guys looked confused.

'I need to pay for my crimes. I'll save the world but I'm too dangerous to be left out here. Oh and please don't call me "Miss Wilkins" The Mayor adopted me because of what I did. I don't want that name anymore, it's just Faith now.

After a short pause B changed the subject. 'Any word from Xand or Dawn?'

'Sunburst called in a bit ago, said the was some trouble in L.A. and it might take some time to sort out.'

'Who's Sunburst?'

'Dawn's new nickname. She thinks it sounds cool.'

'Right… Sunburst? I think I'll stick with "Rugrat".'

* * *

Angel was shivering. Almost a month down there, freezing under an ocean of water, had left him hungry and very cold. He honestly thought he'd lose his mind, and was almost convinced he had when the robot came to drag him back to dry land. After Dawn explained who she was and both her and Wes had heated up some pigs blood for him he had told them they were heading for the hotel and his son. There was a long talk overdue between the two of them.

Dawnie had an idea and told both men to wait and see what it was. Angel realised what "it" was when they got close to the hotel and she sped the damn truck up. The truck lifted from the ground as it hit the curb... There was an almighty crash...

Rolling out of the cab and into the demolished lobby Angel and Wes scrambled to their feet and they watched as harmless, little, Dawnie flew into Conner like an avenging angel. She knocked him out with a single flying punch that shattered his jaw. If Angel's son was human his skull would have been pulped by the blow. With one hand the dreadnought tossed the teenager to his father while caching Gunn's hubcap axe mid swing with the other. She spun on one foot, round-housing the former gang member to Wesley.

Fred had got to the weapons cabinet and one of the loaded crossbow's. She fired in perfect symmetry with Dawn's laser pistol. The bolt was vaporised mid air, the lance of light punched through the bow, shattering it in a hail of splinters. Still the pulse continued, Fred bounced of the cabinet, hitting her head she was out of it before she hit the floor.

'Stun setting.' She called over her shoulder, heading for Fred. Dawn picked the Texan off the ground like she weighted nothing and carried her back to the truck. Throwing the three unconscious defenders into the truck she opened her face plates. Angel had seen Buffy use the same "Don't mess with me" expression. 'Help me get the weapons. Next stop Sunnydale.'

Angel wasn't going to leave just yet, there was something he had to do. 'Dawn, I know you think this is important, it probably is but I have to find Cordy. I need to know if Conner had anything...' the sentence was finished with a fist travelling at something like 30-mph connecting with his chin.

* * *

Wesley looked at the juggernaut woman in front of him 'Anything else?' she asked with an edge sharp enough to cut his head off. The cab revved on its own and he decided not to press the issue. 'Urm w... which weapons do you need?'

* * *

Faith watched as the two giant metal men gently landed in B's garden. 'The cars turn into those things?'

'Yes and no, they're the Dinobots. While the cars do become man shaped robots these guys, who are a sub group of the Autobots, can become metal dinosaurs.' The cute archaeologist explained. She spared a moment to size him up; good build, smart and good looking. Boy, she'd been in the joint too long.

There was a noise and Faith turned to see parts of the two giants shifted and grind together. One became some sort of bird while the other was definitely a T-Rex. For the first time in years she thanked her grandmothers choice of Jurassic Park on her birthday. Dashing the memory from her thoughts she watched one of their heads fall to the ground. Moments before hitting it unfolded like a piece of paper into another, smaller robot.

'Oh man that is SO cool!' An all too familiar voice answered. 'I could almost feel the wind through my hair. Hi Faith, everything five by five?'

'Xander?' She gasped as he rolled a shoulder and popped his neck.

'In the flesh, well in the steel. Ok so it's a Cybretronian alloy but its still me. God I'm babbling like Will and speaking of…' Faith looked passed the ecstatic Xander and saw Red and Giles stumbling out of the two metal dinosaurs backs.

For several seconds nothing happened as Red and Giles stumbled in front of her. Faith met their stairs with her own sorrow. A thousand apology's died in her mouth. 'You don't have to say anything. I know what you want so say. Lets pretend you've said it and we'll pretend to accept it.' Willow was the first to speak.

'I am so sorry, I'm not trying to pretend I really am sorry.'

'Good, I've been where you have recently so lets just call this quits here and now.' The pain in her eyes reminded Faith of herself in the mirror but there was something else, deeper and sadder than that.

'No I have to make it up to you and I hope I can.'

Dr Jackson stepped up at that point. 'Ah. Hello. I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson I work with the Air Force. We've sort of garrisoned the town and got most of the civilians out of here. As I understand it you're going to be our guy's experts while the Autobots finish their own war.'

'Doctor Jackson? I've read some of your work. It was a fascinating interoperation of the Goa'uld trans-dimensional invasion of ancient Egypt. But this isn't the time, my name is Doctor Rupert Giles and this is my friend, and sometime assistant, Willow Rosenburg. With the introductions over with lets move this inside.' Giles smiled before muttering 'Away from these infernal contraptions.'

Faith watched the younger man wince. 'Actually Dr Giles, the Dinobots aren't from Earth. In fact they are a race of living machines.' The Slayer wished she had a camera for the looks on Giles and Red's faces.

* * *

Dawn could feel her old body trembling inside her new skin. Buffy didn't know, no human did. Since her "real" flesh body was dying when the Autobots rebuilt her she could never return to who she was. Her sister, Xander, all the other companions could, one day, take off the armour, put aside the control helmets and live a normal life again. The Autobots could replace their heads with their originals, replace their guns with the thousands locked within The Ark. She was lost, Dawn was slowly fading away. In her place Sunburst grew. A transformer with some of the memories and abilities of Optimus Prime, thanks to the telepathic link through Primus, and the knowledge of a professional demon hunter/researcher because of her past life as the Slayer's sister. Sunburst had no place in the simple world of the mortal nor the complex life of the Slayer.

Do you really believe that? Optimus Prime whispered in her mind, he had sensed her unease through the psychic link.

How can you ask that? I can't return to that directionless girl of last week, Dawn Summers is dead and gone. I have no place on this world.

Nether do the Autobots or the Decepticons, you have a place on another world. Cybertron. Our home is yours for you are now an Autobot. Humans greatest advantage is your ability to evolve, to change as the occasion demands. We Cybertonians can't do that, I can learn to expand my programs but never change them. adapting yourselves so completely, even now your dead body is fusing with the Power-master shell more completely that anything we could accomplish alone. She could almost see him smile and warm feelings echoed down the link.

Dawn thought for a moment, trying to hide it from the friend.What the hell. I was never from this planet anyway. And I'm sure that I could visit if I get too nostalgic.

I'm just worried what Elita-1 will say when I tell her

Tell her what?

That I think of you as a daughter.

… Sunburst was speechless. A daughter. Yes he was a father to her, more than that bastard who married Joyce at least.

Do you mind that I think of you like that? Prime asked, concerned.

Sunburst shook her head No I am glad you think of me that way. Just don't expect me to call you Daddy.

Wesley jumped out of his skin when Prime laughed aloud. just in time to pull up next to her old home.

For three hours after they arrived Sunburst and Buffy laid out the plan. It was more or less simple:- hold Sunnydale against the demons, vampires and assorted monsters that wanted to destroy the world. The rest of the time was spent explaining what was going on with each others lives and how they should work together.

'One last thing before we go.' Sunburst led the Colonel, Faith and Wesley to the trailer. 'This will stay here, it's a mobile command base with just about everything you need. On board Autobot radio, an assault truck caller Roller, enough fire power to destroy a small ship and the weapons I "borrowed" from the Fang Gang.' She touched a concealed button on her wrist and the base unfolded. The three inspected the mobile command centre like kids at a candy store.

Faith played around with some of the conventional weapons but tossed them all to one side. At the back of the trailer, half buried under the weapons she found an ancient sword. It was a dull silver with age, the blade was made up of a tower of incredibly sharp tripods that spun in opposing directions. As the slayer experimented with the spinning blade the rest of the group watched her. Faith eventually smiled and performed a cartwheel off the side of the open base and walked back to the house.

O'Neill shrugged and started inspecting Roller while Wesley opened up the control cabin and poked around. 'If you have any troubles there are a hand full of instruction books slotted next to the screens.' Sunburst said.

While they and the rest of the "last, best, hope" as Xander called them, got organised. Jazz and Prowl pulled up. The two Dinobots transformed and Prime opened his doors.

No one noticed as Buffy, Xander and Sunburst got in and the small band of powerful Autobots left Sunnydale for Oregon and the first battle of the new war…

End Chapter 7


	9. Chapter 8

All Creatures Great and Small.  
Directors Edition  
Chapter 8

Sunburst was kicking a massive bolt down one of the immense, abandoned storage corridors. She was not in a good mood.

//////One and a half hours ago\\\  
'Ironhide to HQ, Decepticons attacking the nuclear power station! All Autobots needed, quickly!' They were a good ten minuets away from the base when they intercepted the transmission.

'Autobots Roll out!!!' Prime turned almost 100 degrees on the spot and shifted into overdrive. Checking the review mirror Sunburst could see the others doing the same after she pulled herself out of the seat.

'Sunburst to Grimlock, Swoop and Xander. Jet ahead and take out any Decepticon moving.'

'Grimlock think that good idea.'

'Swoop says; lets do it!' The two Dinobots flew over head aiming for the distant power station.

It took Prime, Jazz and Prowl a bit longer to get there with their small companions onboard. When they did get there they found a heavily out numbered Autobot patrol fending off the entire Decepticon army. Recklessly they headed into the large group of Decepticons trying to slip past the entrenched defenders. Prowl and Jazz transformed in a flash and jumped into the middle of them firing as fast as they could, Sunburst flipped out of Prime and onto Lazerbeak smacking it repeatedly across its head with her pistol. Prime himself converted into robot mode caught Buffy, who had transformed herself, and sniped of two Decepticon jets with the small but powerful Buffy gun from what limited cover he found from a demolished out building.

Sunburst was having a blast, due to the nature of the Key she could deliver 100 power with each blow, far more than the conservative attacks of most Autobots. Lazerbeak's head was seriously dented before crashing into the wall. Badly damaged he returned to cassette mode at the smug Power-master's feet. Standing up with a few scuffs on her paint she found herself facing Dirge. The special power of his engines sent shivers down her spine, pinned to the spot with fear she scanned for her blaster It was under the rubble at her feet…

//////Now\\\  
Sunburst kicked the bolt again, it bounced off the corner ahead of her and down the hall. She was about to follow it when she noticed a silver suitcase lying in the alcove. It had obviously fallen from something and been forgotten. Pulling it out of the shadows she read the stylised symbols of the Autobots descendants, the Maximals. There was a simple numerical key lock next to the owners name. With a small smile she tapped in her first guess, the Predacon code number for "rodent" and it opened.

Good old Rattrap duplicity, it's a pity that those that knew him could see it coming a mile off. Even her third hand memories were enough to know him. Inside was the Maximal's spy favourite rifle, a master crafted photon cannon, with four spare energon cells. Noting that she needed a new gun, and the ancient law of finders keepers, she strapped the gun to her leg and pocketed the extra cells. After a moment of practicing her fast draw Sunburst decided to play a new game. Find anything else the Maximals or Predicons left behind. If Faith could play with the stuff so could she.

* * *

Buffy sat next to Prime while he had his arm replaced. She had no idea why he wasn't angry at Dawn. If she had just stayed out of the fight…

/////One hour ago\\\  
It was a strange sensation just being a gun, she couldn't walk or really move. Like watching an action film in 3-D surround sound ultra vision, all she could do was relax. She had to admit the feeling of power she got each time she was fired was euphoric but she was still being used and that was freighting. Was it? For a strange moment she turned the thought on is head, as a Slayer she fought fear every day and had gotten to know it well. She was simply afraid, almost enough to terrify her still, but there was nothing to be afraid of at the moment. Something was forcing her to be afraid the question was who and why?

Buffy used her scope sights to look around, a crimson red Decepticon jet was pointing his arms at Dawn. She knew that was the cause of it and now there was a reason to fear. That thing could squash her sister like a bug. 'Prime! Behind us!'

'Dirge.' As Optimus paned around as the Decepticon fired. Dawn somehow jumped backwards just in time, skidding away from the blast. The Autobot leader quick-fired Buffy to take down Dirge before he could react. Both of them looked to see Dawn get up and point behind them.

Buffy clattered against the ground, out of the corner of her eye she saw a silver Decepticon with a super sized cannon strapped to it's arm. 'Eyes in the back of your head not working Prime? Shame. Then again here ends your life, every cloud and silver linings. Wouldn't you agree Optimus?' Prime's right hand was still clutched around Buffy, his arm a good distance from his body.

Before the Decepticon could fire, killing the injured Autobot leader, Dawn shouted 'Hey Megatron! Catch!' She ran up to Prime and bounced off him, right into Megatron's face. Her drop kick landed with the full force of her momentum and the strength of both legs. Buffy suspected that would do something impressive and it did. Dawn landed with a crash, only a few feet away. Megatron clawed himself out of a cooling tower, one eye was shattered and his helmet was bent into his face. Dawn, on he other hand, didn't move.

Time dilated for Buffy. She was helpless, trapped by the iron grip of Primes' amputated arm. Dawn was unconscious and bleeding both oil and human blood. 'That was a mistake little one. Your first and last.' Megatron was having trouble aiming thanks to his obvious concussion but yet again he was stopped from firing. Prime shouldered the gunmetal grey Decepticon back into the cooling tower. With two added kicks Prime brought Megatron down to his knees. The Decepticon looked around as someone shouted; 'Megatron! Autobot reinforcements approaching'

Megatron did the only thing he could, 'Decepticons! Transform and retreat!' He fired with a built in shock blaster, knocking Primes' legs from under him. The Decepticon leader hovered for an instant and flew away. Despite still having his own gun and one arm Prime couldn't hit Megatron as he and his army escaped.

* * *

///Now\\\  
Buzzsaw was helping him repair his face. Megatron wasn't paying the bird shaped twin of laserbeak any attention. His massive database was running over the battle again and again. The turning point was when Prime turned up with that new Target-master and that other Nebulan. She was his next target, that little bug took out Lazerbeak like it was a game. 'Ravage! Come here.' He called, ignoring the flair of pain when his repairs were strained. Megatron's loyal spy ran to him; 'Transform, I want to see your records on that kidnap you failed at.'

The Decepticon tape looked guilty just before compiling with his masters orders. Playing back the tape on his undersea base computer Megatron paused the image of the Nebulan that had stopped Ravage. 'The same 'bot. Gah!' Megatron bounced his fist of the console. Buzzsaw flew back from his master's rage, Ravage transformed out of his slot and cringed behind a near by chair. 'Whomever this worm is she works with Prime. And she has annoyed me, stopped my minions and prevented me from obliterating that sanctimonious Prime . She will regret crossing Megatron! Oh yes she will!' he growled before shattering the screen.

* * *

Sunburst stopped outside the old shuttle bay. Buried under a volcano there wasn't much use for a roof top door, so no one had tried to get inside and it was long forgotten. Next door were the automatic medical and armoury supply distribution rooms, basically giant cargo bays. Both were working without supervision and at full speed. No Autobot had been up here since The Ark was launched, almost four and a half million years ago. 

This was the perfect place to hide any technology and equipment the Maximals left behind.

Only one problem. The door wouldn't open. Not to a standard code or Prime's override. A sure sign someone had sealed it from the world. With a wry grin Sunburst decided to try Rattrap's preferred code breaker. When the lock stopped smoking the door opened a little bit. After shooting out the door motors she was able to push the thick metal shutters open, just big enough for her to squeeze through. Inside was enough equipment to restart the Beast Wars and then some.

Wreckage from both bases. Crates of ammo, weapons and technology lined the walls and were scattered all over the deck. Sunburst laughed almost constantly as, for her, Christmas came early.

* * *

Angel, Faith and Wes sat facing the newly conscious Conner. They had given him a pencil and paper to communicate with. It was a long time before they had excepted his written word that he had nothing to do with Cordy's disappearance. The others were out patrolling. Leaving the four of them alone in the house as a radio switch board for the two dozen Air Force teams dotted around the town.

A short knocking on the door was followed by a demon opening it. 'Hello? Slayer? Dawnie? Gak!' Angel dropped from the rafters as Faith pointed her new spinning sword at the demons head.

It was kinda short, with great flaps and folds of skin tumbling on top of each other 'Who are you? What are you doing here? Answers now or I'll skin you alive. From the looks of things that will take some time.' Angel threatened. What the hell was a demon doing walking into a Slayer's home?

'I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't know she had moved. Can I go, please? I won't trouble you again. Just don't hurt me.'

'What's your name?' Angel asked picking himself up of the lump of skin but kept his foot on it's back, pinning the demon.

'Clem, I'm called Clem. I knew the people who lived here, I thought they had gone on holiday. I was walking past and saw the lights were on. I thought they were back' The thing wasn't struggling ,only shaking with fear.

Faith moved the sword closer to the demon, Angel could feel it ripping the air. 'How do you know Buffy?'

'She's the Slayer, I'm a demon. That's a good incentive not to annoy her. I wouldn't hurt anything not even cats, no I love cats. I don't eat them.' Angel was having a hard time not laughing by now. This guy was no threat, he finally let him up.

'Buffy's out saving the world, we're here to keep Sunnydale safe. That's Faith the other Vampire Slayer.' Clem jumped back, almost grovelling in the doorway again.

'I'm harmless, really.'

Faith smiled, the first smile Angel could remember for a long time. 'I can see that. If B says your alright then so do I.'

'And I'm Angel'

'Angelus? The vampire that sired Spike?'

It would take too long for him to explain so Angel let it go with a; 'More or less.'

'You have a soul now right? You fight for the powers?'

The en-souled master vampire had no idea where this was going. 'Yes?'

'You can help him then. He did something terrible and wanted to be like he was before but he didn't know what he was asking…'

'Who?'

'Spike, he needs help…'

'Spike's in Sunnydale again? Damn him, that's the last thing we need. Faith get your coat.' Angel pulled his duster from the rack and glided out the house, Faith followed close behind.

'You, Clem, stay here with Wesley.' Faith shouted behind her. 'Wes, he does anything other than breath, kill him. You guys do breath right?' Before the demon could answer Angel had begun to run. Faith was trying to keep up with him as he took off into the night.

* * *

Sunburst was hacking open another box of assorted gismos when she saw it. There wasn't a crate big enough for it. A scale replica of Optimal Optimus Primal. It was made from harsh steel and simple bolts and rivets. The same size as Bumblebee and the other smaller Autobots. It also looked like some sort of suit.

When she got closer she ran a detailed scan. It was a suit, capable of receiving and transmitting on multiple channels, almost like a remote control. Whatever it was designed for Sunburst had other ideas on what she could do with it. She started by ripping off the antenna...

///three quarters of an hour ago\\\  
Sunburst woke up. What was left of her human body had repaired its own damage as had her Power-master armour, with a little help from Fixit. The small Autobot medic was now working on Ironhide's damage. Prime was the first to notice she had full reactivated; 'What, by Primus and the sentient universe, were you thinking? Taking on Dirge unarmed not enough for you so you go after Megatron?' He shouted at her. She saw that the horrific damage he had suffered hadn't been touched yet. Typical Prime, he could be a disembodied head and he'd care more for his warriors scuffed paint than himself.

'I had a gun when I started.' She weakly replied. 'What was I supposed to do? Let that oversized musket send your spark back to Vector Sigma?' she could feel the newly repaired systems settle into place with her aches and pains.

Buffy was suddenly there with them. 'You shouldn't have been there in the first place. The Decepticons could kill you like I would swat a fly. I thought you knew better than to get killed.'

'Buffy I do. What I did was needed. I don't care if you, either of you, think it was stupid. In the end I'm just one life and not that important. You are the Slayer you protect this world from darkness. You are infinitely more important than me Buffy. Prime, you are the leader and the spirit of the Autobots. When you stand they all stand. If you fall they all fall. Anyone of them would willingly give their lives for you. So must I,' Sunburst sat up and looked at both of them. 'I might carry the Key but that's all. If die someone else can carry it. No one else can slay like you and no one else can lead like you.'

Prime leaned back, 'No. You say that but we both care for you. If something happened I wouldn't be able to carry on knowing that I let an innocent die for me. I'm sorry but you cannot fight with us. The only reason I got injured was because I worry about you. That's a distraction I cannot have while I'm out there.'

'Prime's right Dawn, we can count on all the Autobots to fight well because they're powerful enough to match the Decepticons, you aren't.'

Sunburst looked at Buffy she would have opened her face pates to stare her down but she didn't want to show her unshed tears. 'Your right both of you. Dawn was too weak and to innocent to fight. But I'm not her anymore. Neither of you understand that I'm Sunburst now. This isn't an act or a game to me. My life is what I make of it now. The person you remember Buffy never really existed. Dawnie was the little girl who the monks made, a story of a silly little girl they invented of the top of their heads. Dawn was the young woman who had to grow up too fast when the world abandoned her with death and then in life. I am now Sunburst I fight for the good in this world. The same as you and if you think that's wrong, if you can take away all the lessons life has taught me, then I will stay out of your way. I never could stand hypocrisy anyway.' She didn't even look back as she barged out of the medical room and for the abandoned corridors.

* * *

///Now\\\  
Prime's arm was finally fixed back on both he and Buffy went looking for little Sunburst. Wheeljack was not surprised at their reaction, or at hers. Both points were valid and mutually exclusive. The Autobot scientist was shocked out of his thoughts when his comm board chirped at him. With a quick frown he activated it.

'Wheeljack. Sensors show Prime and my sister just left.' It was Sunburst, where had she gotten access to the internal comms?

'Yes their trying to find you.'

'Perfect. I think I have a way to help fight and still stay out of danger, but I need a brilliant mechanic that's up for a challenge.'

'Are you flattering me?'

'Yes.'

'It worked, Ratchet's dealing with the others. What do you need.'

'Meet me in the top storage decks and don't tell anyone I want it to be a surprise.'

Wheeljack was so intrigued that he did what he was asked. When he got to the right decks he saw the shuttle bay doors were part open. Pushing them all the way he was amazed by what he found. It looked like a control cabin for something the same size as a human, or maybe a little bigger. it sat in and amongst small storage crates that had been up turned and broken in some sort of search. Sunburst was sitting at one of the monitors with a wire frame model spinning on a table projector behind her. She was busily programming something into the computer before turning around. 'Hi. What do you think?'

* * *

Faith burst into the crypt, close behind Angel. Huddled in the corner was a pathetic whimpering shell of a vampire. Angel didn't change pace as he walked right up to Spike.

'You should have told me…' his voice was soft and hollow. Something about it worried the Slayer.

'Spike,' Angel's voice dripped with false friendship with one hand he picked the bleach blond killer up from the floor 'How nice it is to see you again. Mate' He uttered the last word while throwing the vampire through a stone coffin lid.

Faith watched as Angel pounded Spike through walls, fridge doors and, finally, the crypts roof. Outside Spike was still standing, not running, not fighting just standing there. She was determined to kill the bastard who bragged about bagging two Slayers. Drawing the cool sword back she was about to run him through when his eye's snapped into focus. 'I've been a bad man.' He announced to her.

'What the hell?' Faith stopped short. A bad man? she looked at his expression and there was something behind it, clawing at the world. What was wrong with this guy? Angel didn't notice or just didn't care, barging past her he simply started hitting Spike again and again. Spike, Vampire master, Killer of two Slayers, known the world over for his power and skill was just taking it. No blocks, no dodges. He was letting Angel beat him to death. Faith knew that look, the same one she saw in the mirror after her coma. Spike wanted to die 'Stop! Angel! Stop please, look at him!'

Angel backed off, his fists were slick with blood. Spike lay there half dead, well half dead-er. 'What's your point Faith? You want to finish the job?'

'Angel look at him! He wasn't fighting back, he isn't running or hiding. Some things wrong.' she was almost disgusted at Angel for how he was acting. Then again Spike was a vampire and they had a history. Could she be wrong?

'Like me not ramming this stake into his heart. Thanks for reminding me' Angel pulled a stake from his duster and spun back around. Spike was up like lightning, he grabbed Angel's hand and plunged the stake into his own shoulder.

'Must tell the girl, I have to apologise, say sorry. Peaches can kill the bad man then.' Pulling the stake from his shoulder Spike put it to his heart. 'Promise.'

It looked like Angel finally noticed something was up 'What's wrong with you?' he asked but before Angel finished speaking Spike slumped to the ground muttering nonsense in his sleep.

Between them Angel and Faith dragged the almost comatose, insane, vampire back to Buffy's house. They carried him easily over the thresh hold before realising that they shouldn't be able to without Buffy inviting him first. After excusing Clem (who hadn't moved so much as an inch) they threw Spike onto the couch.

The Air Force Colonel and his team returned from patrol a handful of minutes later. 'Goddess! Even my bruises have bruises. I've never known there to be so many demons. Something is definitely going on.' Willow limped in using a wizards staff as a crutch. She had gone with Colonel O'Neill's team as her experience gave them an advantage and the blond woman had questions only Red could answer.

'I'm so glad that you can complain.' The handsome Colonel shot to the witch. 'Mr Angel, you'd know best, can you kill zombies with guns?'

'If you get the head with a high calibre round, yes. Why?'

'Miss Rosenburg here insisted we use our swords. That thing about the dead rising from their graves. It's happening.' The Colonel looked like someone with no teeth had chewed him up and spat him through a stampede. He was black and blue but still better of than the other members of his team. They were cut, beaten and one was missing.

Wesley stood up. 'Did you lose anyone?'

'No Wesley-Price. However Daniel-Jackson was badly injured and taken to the field hospital.' The big dude answered. She still got the strange feeling from him but knew him to be a good guy.

Willow looked around, something felt off. she looked around and saw who was crashed out on the couch 'What's happened to Spike?'

'That's what we want to know some guy called Clem came round and told us he was in town so me and Faith wanted a word or two with him.' Angel sucked on a bruised knuckle, it wasn't much of a guess what sort of word or to he had.

'Angel, Spike was chipped by that secret government group. He's harmless to humans Buffy trusts him. Not very much but she still trusts him. Heck they even…' Willow stopped here self a fraction to late.

'They even what?' Angel looked her straight in the eyes just before Faith broke down laughing to the right of him.

'As interesting as that is' O'Neill interrupted, 'What secret government organisation?' he asked with some sarcasm. To Willow the older man reminded her of a younger Xander, still sarcastic and ready to lighten any situation. That was a long time ago, before the demon underworld crushed that out of her oldest friend.

'The Initiative. It was set up by some group called the Nid to research and use demons as weapons. They had all sorts of funky technology and drugs. They started experimenting on demons and their own troops. Luckily we stopped them before things got too far out of control.' she explained

Major Carter shared a look with her boss. 'Anyone left from the NID?'

'I think there's a team of demon hunters but we haven't heard from them in a while.'

'Carter...'

'I'll look into it, sir' Samantha went to the radio.

* * *

'So think you can do it?' She asked.

Wheeljack studied the screen for the fifth time. It was incredible, using the equipment and technology she had found Sunburst had designed a combat ready battle suit. It could take a long time and nether one of them could be sure that it would work. 'With what we have here and next door, maybe. I need to look at this thing again.'

It was a dull, metal, grey. Built like an overdeveloped human its arms were longer than they should have been. It had no head, something that Sunburst had worked on. She had programmed the computer to build a 3d holographic imaging array into an heavily armoured housing that included stereo and directed audio pick ups. The other interesting thing was the shells left arm. Sunburst had removed the hand and most of the inner workings and replaced them with a three barrelled rotating rocket launcher. Wheeljack could spend years investigating the technology involved but they didn't have the time. 'Yes lets get this battle armour into that chamber you found. I think I can program the alterations from there on.'

'Good. When we've done that I'm going to get some sleep. Please don't tell Prime or anyone else, I want it to be a surprise.' Sunburst asked of him.

He saw through the white lie easily. Prime, or her human sister, wouldn't agree to her fighting, even with the advantage of the suit. Though, in his eyes at least, it would be a waste of a perfectly good invention and they needed all the help they could get. 'Alright.' he agreed. Together they lifted the shell into the chamber, if he ever had the time Wheeljack promised himself he would build a larger scale version for the rest of the Autobots.

End Chapter 8


	10. Chapter 9

All Creatures Great and Small.  
Directors Edition  
Chapter 9

Giles looked out the window into the new sunrise. Last night was hell, quite literally actually. From the reports of the other SG teams as well as the zombies that the Colonel met there were also skeleton warriors crawling out of underground caves. There was also some sort of prehistoric vampire group guarding the new school that Giles and SG-3 met on their recon. While they had gotten the heck out of there and blown the place sky high with grenades a hour ago, the town was still in a lot of danger.

Shortly after he had gotten the reports O'Neill had got on the phone to his commander for reinforcements. Giles knew that this first wave was specifically to stop the Slayer and whatever else the mortal world could throw in defence before the main brunt. The true, pure, demons had to be next and then he could only hope that his Slayer and her new allies would be able to help in time.

* * *

Jack walked into the living room/headquarters. The teenage son of that Angel guy was still hog tied to the chair and the bleached guy was sleeping on the couch. Carter, the red-head and that thin Texan girl were deep in discussion about physics and magic, he could barley understand half the words coming from the three super-geeks. Gunn, Angel and Teal'c were inspecting and sharpening weapons while Faith slept on the floor, her strange sword by her side. The woman had found out that it also had a switch which activated an energy field around it, she had already promised him not to tell Carter. Finally he turned his attention on the other three. While the women scared him these three terrified him. The middle aged Englishman Rupert Giles, the younger, meaner and unkempt, Englishman Wesley Windom-Price and the battered itinerant space monkey Daniel. While the girls talked physics in English those three talked in every language in this galaxy. Italian, German, French, Russian, ancient Egyptian and Sumerian. Jack strongly believed that if they added up the IQ's of every one there you would get the sort of number you find on your credit card, include the girls and you make mensa look like a bunch of illiterate hicks.

'News from the General.' Jack waited for them all to pay attention. 'The Prez has convinced the state governor to declare marshal law. Actually he fired the old governor and told the new one to do it until this whole Armageddon thing is finished.'

'Who is the new governor O'Neill?' T asked him.

Jack just smiled back and let it sink in.

Daniel jumped up 'You've got to be kidding!'

'Afraid not space monkey. I've got the local state garrisons evacuating the town. I've also got every one in the tri-state area from the park rangers to those former NID "specialists" heading here. This time tomorrow I'll have enough man power to hold this town till Doomsday… well you know what I mean.'

* * *

Buffy and Prime were about to search the top decks of the ship when they came across Wheeljack, he told them he was looking for them and that had found Dawn wandering around the engines. Agreeing that now that they knew where she was and that she wasn't doing anything stupid to leave her be Buffy decided to find Xander who had gone to get some food.

After a quick radio message to him Buffy found him on the bridge with a packet of Pringles and a sit-com on the bridge monitors. She took that as a sign that the world was returning to normal, it had been four days since Unicron came a knocking. 'Hi, Xand'

'Alright Buff?'

'Not really. I've just walked from one end of this thing to the other, its huge.'

'I know. Even the Autobots think is too big.'

'Xand, have you figured these things out yet? I mean they're robots but they behave just like humans, I just don't get how.'

'I know what you mean. These guys act like they're humans but their not. Sometimes I have to remind my self that they aren't alive.'

Buffy wasn't so sure about that. 'I've just spent a few hours looking for Dawn with Prime.'

'Why?' he put the cardboard tube down.

'We told her that she was putting her life in danger fighting Decepticons and she stormed off.'

'Buffy, she's almost seventeen. You were out fighting demons at that age.'

'And I had Slayer strength. That put me on an even footing with the demons, she doesn't even have that and she's going toe to toe with the strongest Decepticon there is. She just can't do things like that.'

'What do you expect her to do?'

'Have a life, go to school, get a boyfriend and a job. I want her to have a normal safe life, I died to get her one and I will again if I have to.'

'That's all good and noble Buffy but what if you can't, last time I checked having your mom and sis dying within a few weeks of each other and your father abandons you doesn't give you a normal life. Not to mention that she didn't exist all of four years ago.'

'I know that but…'

'I know you want the best for her but a normal life isn't something you can give her. Just support her, that's all you have to do and really its all you can do.'

'When did you get all insightful Xander.'

'I don't know, scary huh.'

'Definitely' The two of them sat in silence Buffy considered his advice.

The monitors quickly switched to show Prime's face. 'All Autobots report outside in five minutes, battle ready.'

'Well that's that then.' Xander smiled at her cheerfully but the goofy smile didn't quite reach his eyes. Buffy could see fear, concern and a little regret.

Buffy knew her eyes held the same feelings. 'Good luck Xand-man.'

'You too Buff-ster.' They shook each others hands before a quick hug. Then with out another word they walked off to find their respective Autobot partners.

* * *

Through out The Ark Autobots secured their equipment, finished cleaning their guns or turned off the music they were listing to before leaving for probably the last time. One however didn't. She clambered into the large battle suit and transformed into an engine just as the armoured housing slipped over the cockpit.

* * *

Optimus Prime stood on top of a pile of stones in front of The Ark. Buffy looked around the Autobots gathered at the base of the volcano, under the shadow of the Ark. There must have been two hundred or more of them. They were all shapes and sizes, from "small" 8 foot tall Micromasters to a giant space shuttle/dragon lizard/bird/cat thing that her Heads Up Display recognised as Skylynx and a bigger, faceless, red and yellow robot that had a three fingered claw for one hand and a gun the size of an Autobots leg in his other. Her HUD noted he was called Omega Supreme.

'Autobots. This world, this Galaxy, this universe itself is in great danger. In the vast multi-verse there is a force of pure evil that dwarfs even that of Unicron, the Decepticons and the Goa'uld. It is simply called The First and if it wins it will not only enslave the universe, it will torture, maim and destroy every innocent being there is. The First comes from the Inferno itself, it is the master of The Pit. As the humans say Hell and it plans to bring it to this world and all the others stretching from here to Cybertron and back. The humans can not stop it in their own, we must help them and together we can bring peace to the universe.

'However the Decepticons will not help us. If we are distracted by The First Megatron will seize the opportunity to rule this world and then others as surely as The First. We only have one chance to save the universe from the domination of both evils.

'We must go now to destroy the Decepticons here on Earth and only then can we face The First and it's demons. Four million years ago we cashed here and in the few years we have been active I have sworn to protect this world. Now that promise will save everyone in the future and the past. I ask you all to follow me in to the gates of hell and into battle once again. I can not order you. But I can ask, To sand for everything I have sworn to uphold. What do you say?'

Buffy was blown over by the combined shouts of the army around her. They were going to war.

'Thank you one and all, Skylynx, Cosmos, Omega Supreme. I need you to travel to Cybertron as fast as you can and bring back every Autobot you can.'

'Never fear Optimus Skylynx has never failed you. I can complete you task on my own.'

'Then who carries everyone we need back Skylynx?'

'Oh, yes well, in that case follow me comrades.' Buffy watched as he and a smaller green flying saucer took off. Omega Supreme fired his forearms into the air, for a moment Buffy took her eyes off the juggernaut to see what he had done but when she looked back his body was missing. The two forearms span until they connected and became a Saturn space rocket that lead the two others into space.

* * *

Sunburst looked out from the back of the crowd. Smiling she waited for Prime's next order.

'Autobots! Transform and Roll out!' Sunburst watched as the army of Autobots changed in to their vehicle modes, the planes hovered and the cars revved their engines. Behind them all Sunburst finally dropped the screens between the mind and Prime's. The Autobot leader looked right at her 'Good grief, Sunburst?'

* * *

Buffy was one muscle movement away from jumping into Prowl's passenger seat when she heard Prime. Spinning around she saw who he was talking too, but not before losing her balance and falling on her side. It was one of the smaller Autobots still in robot mode, it was a good ten feet tall. It had a purple and green colour scheme that would have been gaudy if it was a shade or too lighter. As it was the darkness gave her an almost sinister look. This thing was obviously built for battle, it's legs were the width of 100 year old trees and its arms were the same but almost twice as long. The massively overdeveloped upper body looked almost human but it had an extra layer of amour over the rounded chest and flat gut. The head was a simple ball mounted into the neck but in the top right quarter it had three different coloured lenses mounted onto some sort of wrap round plate.

'Of course it's me. You and Buffy said I wasn't powerful enough so when I found this I knew what I had to do.' Dawn said from inside it.

'Where were you when you "found" that exo-suit?' Prime asked rather pointedly

'Shuttle Bay, Primal and his Maximals left all sorts of toys down there, including this wonderful gun' she raised her left arm. Instead of a hand there was a muti-barrelled gun in it's place. Buffy also noticed that there was a good five inches of extra armour like a gauntlet and a long flat plate covering the upper arms.

'Damn it Sunburst, you shouldn't have touched any of it. That equipment should have been destroyed. The pollution to the timeline...' he started. some of the other Autobots had transformed back and were watching the argument with some fascination.

'It wasn't. I'm going to do you a deal. Seeming you asked for volunteers I AM coming and you can't really stop me but if this shell gets damaged I'll pull out. Okay?'

Buffy had no idea what they were talking about by Maximals and timeline but knew that Dawn's proposal was the only way they could keep her out of trouble. 'It's alright by me but don't try to pick a fight you can't win, you see Megatron or anyone like that. Run.' she said

'Sounds fair. Shall we go, these brave Autobots are chomping at the bit to fight.' she waved her hand at the others who quickly transformed into vehicles again.

* * *

The odd convoy drove to the nearest coast at top speed. Few Earth vehicles were on the road and they all swerved out of the way. Prime was in the lead with Sunburst standing on his back while holding onto his right exhaust. Through the telepathic link they shared he could tell she was nervous. He could also tell that she had another motive to come. Revenge. Starscream had hurt her badly when the first met, not just physically but he also shattered her dream of a normal life. For all her speech's and determination Sunburst was still little Dawn. She planed to shatter Starscream and had armed the shell to the teeth to do it. Not for the first time the human adage that the female was the most deadly came to mind. She picked that up and with a sense of humour uploaded a list of weapons and equipment that she had built into the suit.

As well as the super powerful, multi-barrelled, rocket launcher replacing her left hand and massive magazine in the same shoulder, she had a telescoping blade mounted in her left gauntlet. The right shoulder housed a shielding grid to supplement the armour she had built in. The right arm forearm also had a grappling hook and net launcher in the gauntlet that she had scavenged from Tarantulas and Blackarachnia. Just to round the effect of the folded wings on her arms concealed ten demolition charges that could be used as bombs.

While the force shield wouldn't stand up long against Decepticon bombardment it would protect her for a short while. The whole thing ran of her Power-master engine form, The Autobot Leader was again glad that Ratchet designed her as an extra engine. if she was his main drive things would be difficult.

Prime's only real concern was that while it was an impressive list the only weapon that would have any real effect on the Decepticons was the rockets, all the rest (save the demolition charges) were too small a yield to seriously effect the larger opponents.

'Prime, Were in the name of Cybertron did that armour come from?' The police car Autobot tactician pulled level with him. Buffy looked like she was trying not to eavesdrop.

'Prowl, that's a long story.' Prime started but he owed the full explanation. 'But here's the short version, in a good five thousand years our descendants, the Maximals, will develop time travel. Shortly after that the Decepticons descendants, the Predicons, will steal a relic from this war and come back in time to plunder Earth of energon and destroy our deactivated forms in the Ark and also stop the human race from existing. They hoped that if they did so we would lose and the Decepticons win. Fortunately they were stopped by a force of Maximals. One of the Predicons got to me and I was badly damaged, the Maximal leader guarded my spark to save my life. I was able to access his memory banks and picked up a few facts.

Prime paused for a moment, 'Sunburst found the leftover equipment and must have made that armour out of spare parts and equipment.'

'If they came from the future then that means we're going to win, doesn't it?'

'Sorry doesn't work that way. According to the Maximal's history we do but in this timeline things are different already. The events of the Beast Wars changed their future as well as our past. Basically the time-storm from their squabble has pushed the universe into a paradox. A paradox that we must fix in about five thousand years otherwise reality, every reality, will crumble.'

'So even if ,and I stress if, we some how win this war we could all lose in a few thousand years if we don't send someone to repeat the mistakes they did?'

'Yes Prowl. That's the sum of it.'

Sunburst didn't really pay much attention to the history of the future lesson from Prime. She was far to scared. Like a nervous twitch she kept spinning her rocket launcher, telling herself that she was just testing the mounting one more time. To calm herself down she tried scanning the different radio stations, there was nothing but news or rap music that she couldn't stand . Twitching the gun a little more Sunburst realised she was crying. She started cursing the armour she was sealed in. She was unable to wipe the tears that were running down her face. This was something she wasn't ready for, the idea of killing. Despite all their evil the Decepticons still had souls, they were still living things. It was their choice that made them evil. While the Autobots had to stop them would victory be too high if they ended up as hollow shells, or worst. Would they, would she, lose herself like Faith did. Did she have the strength to pull back from that?

Did she have to kill? Sunburst was certainly going to do something unpleasant to some of them. But kill? Then she remembered something Buffy told Dawn once, when the young girl had found out about the Slayer and her sisters nightlife. "I do it because I have to. I do it because every vamp I stake means one less to kill you or mum, or someone else's family I'll never meet."

'Every Decepticon I stop means one less innocent life taken, one more person who can live out her hopes and dreams. Bring on the night, come the fight, I'm ready.'

* * *

Faith was fast asleep. She knew she was because that was what she was last doing. It wasn't wandering barefoot in some jungle, up to her knees in muck and little crawly things that had way too many legs. That made this a dream or worse. So why was she here and was it in the worst pile?

Stumbling out into a clearing she saw her sword buried in the ground, lazily spinning like it was just slowing down or didn't have the power to move any faster. 'So I guess that's the trap huh. What the hell, I ain't got anything better to do.' Feeling a little like King Arthur Faith reached out and grasped the handle. The sword leapt into life, ripping itself from the ground like it had a life of its own.

Something growled behind her. As fast as she could move the Slayer was on guard. A tanned brown snout slipped out of the dense jungle, livid dark stripes cutting up it's outline. The lizard snorted before slipping back under cover like a stick sliding into water. 'Oh HELL no. That's a velociraptor!' she hissed.

Faith was no Jedi, but as a Slayer she had excellent senses and used all of them but the jungle all around her sounded dead there was nothing. No sound and no life. 'Okay I'd like to wake up now.' She told no one in particular.

Then it happened, to her right. The plants rippled out of it's way, a twelve foot long 'raptor leaped. She was too slow. There was no warning. In the incredibly short distance between them it changed.

The tail shrunk. The head folded down into its chest. Two powerful legs slid down. The other two legs swung up. A blue human like head with teeth like razors and a sharp nose rose from its neck.

Only inches from her it batted her sword-arm away with a clawed hand, the other snatching her neck like it was a kids toy. It had landed on it's feet. Standing up and up it was almost half again her size. The same clicking hiss that haunted her dreams for nights after seeing that film uttered as it lifted her eye to eye. Then it spoke.

It was a voice from the depths of a gravel pit, growling and snarling It said a single word, no more was needed the word alone would have been too much to bare; 'Traitor.'

End chapter 9


	11. Chapter 10

All Creatures Great and Small  
Directors Edition  
Chapter 10

The Autobots stood at the cliff face just before the shore. A handful of Autobots had water capable modes or modifications but non had weapons designed to deal with an underwater base. It was one of the reasons that, despite the Autobots knowing exactly where his base was, Megaton never abandoned this base. Prowl had brought this little fact up on the way there but Prime told him he had a plan.

'Jazz, Trailbreaker, Sideswipe, Ironhide and Dinobots. Front and centre.'

'Right here Prime.'

'What you need is what I got.'

'I'm ready Prime.'

'You got it boss.'

'Me, Grimlock, follow orders Prime.'

'Trailbreaker set a force field up around the Decepticon base, but don't give it a roof. Ironhide use your liquid nitrogen blaster to freeze the water around the force field while the Dinobots vaporise the water inside with their fire-breath. All other Autobots ready your weapons. The first hull plate we see we hit it with everything we got. Then Trailbreaker drops the field as Jazz and Sideswipe melt the ice. If we time it right we can dowse most of the Decepticons before the battle even begins.'

'But what use is that?' Xander asked from inside Grimlock.

Prowl smiled. 'Salt water damage, that's sure to slow them down at the very least. At best it could short some of their higher functions, disabling them.'

'It's also one hell of a way to knock!' Buffy joked.

* * *

Faith was dropped carelessly on her ass and the 'raptor leaned down and picked up the sword. 'This is mine.'

'Well then there you go no harm no foul.'

'Want to bet, Faith?' He put his hand behind his back and the sword vanished.

'How.. how do you know my name?' She stood up if he knew her name and this was still a dream what was going on?

He smirked at her. 'I have watched you, I have watched all the Slayers in their struggle against the monsters of your world. And, more recently, I have watched this sword find another traitor to wield it.'

* * *

Buffy transformed and was pointed by Prowl at the boiling sea. The shear power that the Dinobots were using had to be stupendous but she knew that was nothing compared to the arsenal of ordinance surrounding her. She was sure that nothing like this had ever been done before.

* * *

Prime had his doubts. The last time mass fire tactics were used on this scale it was by the Decepticons. They were attacking the Autobot's capitol city Lycon at the time. The combined effect had enough force to knock Cybertron out of its home suns orbit and left it stranded as the tenth planet at the outer reaches of this system, so far away humanity had only just discovered it. Looking down he saw Sunburst rev up her main cannon, a moment ago she had chosen full yield for all three rockets, each one would house a raw energon / naquada warhead with the combined destructive power of a low yield nuclear device. 'Autobots, ready your weapons, activate optical shielding!' Prime followed his own orders and gazed down the hole in the water. To his back the sun set to a red sky, in a moment a new sun would blossom in front of him. 'FIRE!'

* * *

'A traitor?' Faith gasped. 'You mean me.'

'Yes, I do.' the tan and metallic blue robot growled. 'You betrayed your friends, those that trusted you and your whole race! For what?' he advanced. 'Answer me!'

'If you've been watching you know already. I killed a man.'

'And another, and another. You were very good at it and that's not the answer. You're hiding from yourself. The answer is Ms Summers. She failed you, you resented playing lieutenant and when the chance came to prove who was best you grasped it. You didn't care about that man or the others you murdered. All you care about is proving who's best.'

'Shut up!' Faith shouted at him.

'When you couldn't be the best Slayer you tried to be the best killer. When you couldn't be the best killer you tried to be the best person, best human you could and it's pathetic' She looked at him, that was the last thing she suspected. 'Stop wearing your crimes like a badge of pity. Take up my sword and use it for what it was meant for, battle!'

* * *

Jack glanced at the sleeping young woman. She gasped and rolled over in her sleeping bag. Bad dreams, he'd been getting them too in what sleep he grabbed and she probably had her fair share of bad memories to draw on. He shook the idea from his head, lack of sleep usually got him like that. She was a criminal and a killer and far too young to be both.

Behind him someone stamped to attention 'Reporting for suicide duty Jack.' a long dead voice said.

Spinning around he saw the rest of his team and those few there that remembered the man gaping at the ghost; 'Kawalsky?'

* * *

Megatron sat back and allowed himself a smile. Zarak had just reported that the Insecticons had collected most of Earth's artificial satellites and had started converting them into Insecti-clones. Megatron knew it was too good an opportunity to pass up. The moment the planet was sent into chaos he sent the Insecticons into orbit to build him an army big enough to take over the world in one fell swoop. His sporadic raids against power stations were to both equip his Decepticons and to distract the Autobots. Best of all without communication equipment no one on Earth would know what he was doing until it was too late.

The undersea base shook again, Megatron hit the comm button on the desk in front of him. 'Shockwave, is this another anomaly?' Whatever had happened to the planet, most likely a stellar dust cloud or a solar flare, had knocked out their sensors.

The one eyed Decepticon appeared on the viewer. 'Investigating now, reactivating external sensors. Confirming sensors accurate, confirmed. Megatron; Autobot army above water level, attacking now.'

'WHAT?!? How many?' Could Prime have deduced his plan and, as the humans say, "upped the anty" and thus starting the final battle.

'This is not logical. it appears to be all of them.'

Blinking rapidly he calculated the odds, half of him couldn't believe Prime would do such a thing while the other half welcomed it. 'This is Megatron! All Decepticons evacuate and defend headquarters.' Quickly he patched into the space transponder. 'Scorpinok, return to base.' Megatron allowed himself a short chuckle moments before the entire ship shook apart.

* * *

'Sort of Jack.' the dead man smiled.

Jack waved his hand through the other man's head. Rupert Giles bit back an oath; 'The First! Colonel, this is not your dead friend! The First is only using his form.' The older man shouted.

'You see that's not quite right. While a big part of me is the First, the rest is Charles Kawalsky. The man you let die all those years ago. Makes you feel good don't it. But who was that other guy you knew, began with a C? You named him after me.'

'Don't' Jack knew exactly what was coming. but he couldn't hide the pain he felt as his friend morphed into his dead son.

'Was gun safety something for other people dad?'

Jack didn't hesitate, drawing his pistol and putting it to his son's head; 'I. Am. Not. Falling. For. It. Now change or I swear I'll put another bullet in Charlie's head.

'You would wouldn't you.' The sandy haired boy looked disappointed and morphed again 'But I am your one true god Apophis...' But Jack interrupted.

'Killed him already. Let me guess,' Jack said then in a squeaky high pitched voice '"I live forever as the first evil. Fear me because I am as dangerous as a chipmunk on helium!" That about sums it up?' Holstering his gun Jack looked the ghost in the eye before shaking his head and turning away.

Faith was slowly standing to her feet her eyes flashed in an unearthly green but behind him the First growled 'Don't turn your back on me!'

'Colonel!' 'Jack' O'Neill various people shouted and Jack jumped to one side, catching a glimpse of this big floating torso with long arms and a demonic head.

'Your race will die. This world then this reality will be mine. I will storm the gates of heaven itself with my armies!' It ranted before it had a hole blasted in it by a green laser burst.

'What the hell?' Jack asked as Faith, her eyes glowing like an Autobots only green, spoke up.

'You strike without honour!' she growled in a voice that wasn't hers.

* * *

Riley lead the small convoy into the town. He couldn't believe he was ordered to Sunnydale by the President himself. The high ups must have finally gotten wind of what was really happening here and panicked.

An Army Sergeant stepped out of a barricade his men had put in the middle of the road. 'Sorry sir, the town's being evacuated. I have to ask you to turn around.'

Riley looked at the Sergeant for the briefest of moments 'Sergeant. My name is Major Riley Finn' he flashed his ID 'I've been told to report to the governor immediately, can you tell me where he is?'

'Sorry sir,' he saluted him. 'The Colonel has set up base at a civilian residence. 1630 Revelo Drive. I can guide you there Sir…'

'No need Sergeant, I know the way.' Driving off Riley glanced at his wife who was sitting next to him 'I should have known Buffy was involved.'

'I'm more worried that you asked for the Governor and they directed you to a Colonel. Things must be bad for a military government to be set up.' Sam said.

Riley thought about that; 'Yep, so am I.'

* * *

Giles watched as Faith shimmered and was replaced by a tall tan warrior made of spikes and muscle. 'How did you do that?' The First evil snarled as it floated off the ground. A couple of airmen rushed up and fired at it, there was no effect. Not that Giles thought there would be. The First's arm swept through them just as harmlessly.

'Back off' The spirit possessing Faith shouted. 'You cannot fight him.' The First swung at the possessed Slayer. This blow connected, sending her cart wheeling into a bookcase.

'Stupid spirit. I am as ancient as the first idea. You are nothing compared to me.' It lifted her up, ramming her against the wall. Angel ran into the room, tried to tackle the First and ended up doing a cartwheel through the window. Showered in glass the Vampire started smoking the moment sunlight hit him.

Faith lopped off the arm pinning her and then rammed the spinning sword through the First's heart. Faint white cracks scattered across the First; 'You can't kill me!'

'No. but you are now too weak to maintain your place here. Goodbye.' Faith grinned with a predator's smile as the first shattered like the window had. and the form that was superimposed on her winked out.

'Mind explaining what just happened?' Colonel O'Neill asked him as they both knelt next to the dark haired Slayer.

Giles winced for a moment. 'The First only physically exists on the astral plane. Apparently the spiritual plane can effect the other and vice-versa. Who ever owned that sword... Of course! Ancient warriors would forge their weapons with a piece of themselves, the Knights Templar often claimed their swords were part of them. The sprit used that connection and was able to help!'

'Is that possible?' Dr Jackson asked

'Yes. But the warrior would have to be powerful and have a personal stake in his actions and have been very powerful in life.'

'I believe him to have been a Cybertronian, Rupert Giles.' The tall dark Teal'c said, using more words that Giles thought he knew.

'If their life force can survive after death... that's fascinating.'

* * *

For the dive to Buffy's house Riley and his team sat in silence, only the occasional report filtering through the radio. As his little convoy drove down the half familiar streets he was shocked at how empty it all was. 'No people, no vamps, no demons. I think this is a bit bigger than a simple international disaster.' Riley would have called it a ghost town if it wasn't the Hellmouth. Not a good place to tempt fate

Slowly they approached the Summers residence. It now resembled a military base. Sandbags, machine gun nests and an unfolded trailer surrounded the detached, suburban, house. Some sort of look out pod sat on top of a tower, a radar dish pointing into town. Riley lead his seven man team out of the cars and to the building. where a broken window was hastily being boarded up. From the looks of it there were two types of armed forces standing guard, Air Force and Army. Most of the Army men were looking around, not believing the things they were seeing. The handful who did had asked to be armed like the flyboys.

The Air Force carried an odd assortment of high calibre guns, unidentifiable Z-shaped pistols and whatever medieval equipment they could scavenge from Buffy's arsenal. They were pretty much equipped for anything, a trick Riley and his men knew all to well.

A tired looking man in Air Force fatigues hopped over a barricade 'Major Finn, I'm Colonel O'Neill. Ready for the briefing?' The Colonel was in his mid to late forties with greying hair but some how he looked younger around the eyes.

'Yes Sir. But I think we already know what's happening.'

'Oh, you do?'

'Yes sir,' The animosity between Air Force and Army was well known, Riley never liked it but for the first time he understood it. This Air Force jock was on his turf now. 'You and your men found out about demons and decided to do something about them but then had to call in the professionals when it got to hard for you to handle on your own.' He scorned the older man.

There was a moment where no one said anything, the Air Force officers in earshot winced noticeably '…Son, you don't know squat. Out there is a portal to hell it's self. It's opening. That's right the Hellmouth is about to swallow us whole and we don't have a chance in hell of stopping it. All we can do is delay it. Get inside I'm starting the briefing in five minutes and you expert Jarheads better listen!' he turned around and marched back into the house. Riley could hear him muttering under his breath something about stupid kids and shooting them.

Riley and his men had barely shook off the Colonel's retort before a new voice spoke 'Don't you ever learn Boy?' Sat amongst the snickering Flyboys was a pail dark haired man, he was sticking to the long shadows of dusk and smelt slightly of burnt bacon.

'Angel. What are you doing here vampire?' At his last word his team brought up their blasters and stakes.

'Same as you Finn. Saving the planet. Get inside, O'Neill has a little demonstration for you and the rest of your guys.' Angel thumbed them on with a wince.

* * *

The Autobots watched as the Decepticons came pouring out of what was left of their undersea base. Buffy could tell that they were pretty evenly matched and the only edge they had was that they had surprised them. Then the fireworks started. It became hard for her to keep track of what was happening, Prime shouted for the Autobots to spilt up and fire at will. Buffy heard Xander shout back 'What's Will ever done to you eh!' before things moved to fast.

The sky was full of conflicting planes, helicopters and even flying cars. Missiles, lasers, arc lightning and shrapnel bombs were everywhere. Suddenly one of the Decepticon planes switched from a jet into a tank, before she could react to him aiming at her and Prowl the red Autobot tank Came out of nowhere and fired at it 'Tag Blitzing, Boom! Kapow! spoing! ha, ha!' and the battle pushed the duelling tanks to one side as she and Prowl were swept away in the flow of combat.

Prowl was firing on the move, never stopping, never a target. alternating between short bursts from her and missiles from his shoulder. Between them he and Buffy were missing quite a bit but to be honest no one could keep track of it all. Then something new happened, from somewhere on the battle field a shout came up. 'Stunticons combine!'

Then another, 'Constructicons combine!'

And another, 'Terrorcons combine!'

Buffy caught a glimpse of what was happening, Decepticons were jumping into each other, fitting together into some thing new. Three massive, even by Autobot standards, robots dominated the sky line. Then came more shouts jumbled together she couldn't make them out. Within seconds two dozen of these giants strode amongst the chaos below them, some of them were Autobots and others Decepticon. They continued fighting with every thing they had, trying to push the final battle of their aeons old war one way or another.

* * *

Prime had lost sight of Sunburst just after the gestalts started appearing. He was wrestling it out with Cyclonus and his nebulan Nightstick when he got a cold feeling in his gut. Dispatching Nightstick before shooting Cyclonus he realised what it was. Megatron had committed all his forces save one. His biggest on the planet, Scorpinok. In an instant he saw his biggest mistake, he had sent his two largest men to get reinforcements. Those two were the only thing he had that could possibly stop the town sized spacecraft.

* * *

Jack grimaced. This was the fifth group of "things" that SG1 and their temporary additional members had come across that night and they had only been at it for an hour. Yesterday he had been training with Faith and was thankfully better with the sword this time than his pathetic previous attempt.

Faith was now awake and fighting with them. Before she was struggling, only just getting the upper hand however today she was in a class of her own. With that spinning sword each cut, thrust, and swing ripped the things apart. The mess was appalling but her face never cracked its grim mask. Who or whatever that possession was from it changed her. She wasn't the young timid woman but well the only word that fit was Slayer. All he and his expanded team had to do was hold their own while she cut through the apparently endless demons and monsters of this quiet little town.

He and Prime were going to have words about where that sword came from. Jack had a nasty feeling he already knew.

* * *

Sunburst was wilting her way trough the Decepticon Micromasters and Nebulans relatively easily. Their fight had, and still was, taking place behind the larger Autobots. Sunburst's shell made her equal to the Decepticons who had tried to go for the "easy kill' of the smaller Autobots. She had just blasted one of the Air Strike Patrol down, one of four Decepticon micromaster jets when she saw her real target.

Trailing after the damaged triple changer Broadside, Starscream was laughing. Another cowered Sunburst thought before calling up; 'Hello Chuckles, lets play!' With a quick mental command her shoulder armour folded out into razor sharp wings and her A/G system activated. There she hovered for a second, realising she was about to fly. Sunburst fought back the reckless enthusiasm that was left over from Dawn and replaced it with determination. She hadn't actually killed a Decepticon yet, damaged them yes but they would be back. It was time to change that and put another nail in the coffin of Dawn Summers.

* * *

Starscream was a coward and a liar. He found the idea of flying out of the combat zone and staying out the best idea he ever had. Shooting down a pathetic Autobot who was too damaged to save himself was just the excuse he needed. The Decepticon Lieutenant suddenly heard a shout from behind him. For only the shortest of moments he risked looking back.

A mechanoid he had never seen before was less than an inch from his tail fins, one hand was an oversized block and the other was a multi barred gun mounted in place of a fist. the weapon rotated once and three ugly missiles slid into place. 'Buss off 'bot can't you see I'm busy.' In an instant he hit hyper-boost, attempting to get away from whoever it was.

A fast blur flew past his cockpit followed by a searing pain in his right intake. Somehow the mechanoid had fired a grappling line into him, another glance back and he saw the thing land on his tail. 'Get off meeeee!' Starscream panicked, he dodged from side to side, up and down, everything he could to shake whoever it was off of him.

* * *

Highbrow swallowed hard. He and Springer were following a couple of Decepticons into a low cloud. The Decepticon jets were pulling off the kind of manoeuvres that made him sick, trying to shake the two futuristic Autobot helicopters. Pulling out of a particularly suicidal dive out of the cloud he saw something, it was big and green and had a lot of purple lights coming from it…

* * *

Springer was right behind Highbrow when the laser burst vaporised most of the other Autobot. He pulled away as fast and as hard as he could but still lost part of his tail to the bombardment. 'Prime, Scorpinok approaching from cloud cover,' he glanced back 'Oh shit! Prime, it's unloading Insecticons! Hundreds of them! There's a whole other army up here!'

Transforming Springer went into free fall as he picked off Insecticons with his rifle. Moments before landing he used his hip mounted boosters to land, relatively, safely. The damage from a near by missile blast knocking him into status lock.

* * *

Prime spared some time from pummelling Soundwave to look up at the Decepticon spaceship that was coming down 'Damn.' Pulling his fist from the crumpled Decepticon tape deck he looked for someone, anyone who could do something about it but saw no one.

* * *

Grimlock had lead his motley crew of Dinobots into combat with the Decepticon pretenders. Now with Xander in control he was facing off with Bludgeon, both swords were drawn and the two combatants were ignorant of every thing else. Xander gulped, this could get bad, fast.

The Decepticon samurai made a swipe. Xander had Grimlock block and lash out with a foot. Kicking the Decepticon back.

'Clumsy oaf, your crude force is no mach for a master of Metallikato such as myself!' With a short burst of speed the Decepticon charged. Xander got the Big grim to side step away from the powerful swing and then smack the pretender in the face, cracking the skull like head back. The difference between the two combatants was that both Xander and Grimlock were more confident with fists and feet.

Xander allowed himself to smile. This guy was the best sword fighting expert in the entire Decepticon army. He looked like an ancient samurai warrior, a skeleton wearing armour, but deep in his mind Grimlock told him that it was only a shell and that the real Decepticon was hidden behind it. As Bludgeon approached more slowly than last time Xander realised just how good he was. Xander had spent most of his adult life with trained fighters and knew the way they moved. Now the Decepticon had the measure of him, he'd be ready for another cheap trick. If this fight didn't finish soon he would lose. If, however, he could pull of an expensive trick on the ninja-bot-boy he might just win yet.

Parrying blow after blow the swords clashed together as Grimlock took control of the defence. Xander hoped and prayed that he would get this next move right. He remembered watching Buffy and Giles train and had, in his spare time, practised with his own sword the same moves. He watched as Bludgeon took the one gap Xander told Grimlock to leave. Thrusting his sword the Decepticon aimed for Grimlock's unprotected head.

It was just what Xander needed. Taking control in an instant he span on Grimlock's left heal and Bludgeon's thrust passed harmlessly in front of his eyes. Grimlock's sword followed a deliberately wide ark that started with the spin. He caught Bludgeons leg with the sword tip, shocking the Decepticon still.

Half way through his spin Xander dropped to one knee and straightened the arm, the move lowered the blade and locked Grimlock's arms in a straight line. Nothing could stop this blow, it had all of Grimlock's strength and body weight behind it and enough momentum and speed to stop anyone reacting fast enough. Xander saw the surprise in the Decepticon's face as the sword passed through it's abdominal armour, cutting him in half with a fury of sparks. 'Looks like Metallikato is no match for my Xander-fu!' Turning around Xander saw another pretender, Stranglehold, turn and run, throwing his ball and chain weapon to the ground. Only to be picked off by another Autobots laser fire.

* * *

Sunburst had picked up Springer's radio message seconds after seeing the behemoth that was Scorpinok herself. Starscream however hadn't, like this he could… Sunburst swung around and pulled herself to the nose cone. With her right arm she gripped the under side and pulled the jet up and towards Scorpinok. It was painful work melting her rocket turbines and she had to keep Starscream's optics covered otherwise he would be able to turn away. Unfortunately it looked like Starscream wasn't going to play the fool much longer. He switched to robot mode in an instant.

Sunburst was left holding to the robots chest, with her hand caught between two plates. Starscream was shouting in pain while trying to pull the arm free. Sunburst knew it was impossible, with all the energy she could muster she rammed up the power to her thrusters. Now they were locked on course, head long into Scorpinok's engines. She armed the high explosives mounted in the suits wings and blew the escape hatch, or head as it was more commonly known.

The look on Starscream's face was priceless as Sunburst pulled out her Photon cannon and fired a handful of rounds into his face. 'That should keep you busy. bye bye.'

Starscream lived up to his name sake as he screamed all the way into the spaceship sized Decepticon.

* * *

From the ground Megatron watched as the two grappled high above; 'Starscream you fool! TURN!'

It was spectacular. Flying into Scorpinok's power core was the combined might of both transformers and their impressive ordinance. Many Insecticons were caught by flying shrapnel and their wreckage just added to the chaos that rained down upon the two warring factions tearing up the landscape for miles around. Megatron stood immobile as he watched one object fall. A power master painted green, who had jumped at the last moment. He recognised her and was not happy that yet again this little slime had got in his way.

Megatron ran, jumped, and flew at the small young Autobot as she fell. Rolling with the landing she was able to survive with the help of her small internal jet pack and not just a little luck. 'YOU!' The small thing turned to face the lower shin of Megatron.

'Uh oh. Urm, Hi?' she fired repeatedly at him. Visibly shaking, the couple of shots that hit had the same effect as the dozen or so that didn't.

'Hi indeed.' With a broad grin he pointed his much larger gun at her and fired. In a puny attempt to save herself she held the pitiful gun as a shield, it was no real use. Burnt and damaged her surprisingly substantial remains catapulted backwards only to be stopped by a piece of Scorpinok. Another shot collapsed the wreckage on top of her and yet another shot scattered that wreckage a good mile in every direction. Pleased that he had removed one problem Megatron turned round to see Prime, or more accurately Prime's rifle butt.

* * *

Prime noticed Megatron when he didn't budge during the wreckage storm. It took him a moment to realise what he was looking at. Telepathically he had heard Sunburst shout with glee on the way down. He barely had time to tell her to get back to The Ark when he realised Megs' intentions. Hampered by falling parts and a particularly reckless Micromaster (who's mec-fluid was now drying on Primes fist) he didn't get there in time to stop Megatron from blasting the child into the ground.

Now Prime wasn't thinking. His gun broke on his second swing so he activated the energy axe in his right arm. Megatron was in no state to fight back but he still tried. Prime didn't feel the blows that bounced off his face, nor the kicks that shattered his knee. Consumed by rage he cut Megatron's right arm off in one stroke, then with three short hacks into his chest and the Decepticon commander was as good as dead. To finish the job Prime buried his Axe, up to his wrist, in Megatron's spark core. Prime was so intent in destroying Megatron that he didn't notice the one eyed, purple, Decepticon come up behind him and fire.

* * *

The battle raged on throughout the night but it was easy to guess who the winners were going to be. With the destruction of Scorpinok and the Insecticon army depleted to a few of each type the Autobots had the upper hand. That and the destruction of Megatron shortly before Buffy blasted Shockwave into something resembling a slice of Swiss cheese left the Decepticons leaderless and helpless. Most of the combatants didn't notice the sunrise. After all the laser and explosive flashes the sun was quite a disappointment. Buffy had seen Prime taken down, however she had no idea about Dawn's fate and has spent the battle worrying. By the time the last Decepticon fell the last slivers of darkness had disappeared from the horizon.

Buffy returned to having limbs and went up to the damaged Prime. He had crawled and clawed his way to a small crater a short distance from where he had fallen. His face was buried in the ground and his out stretched hand clutched some black and burnt thing. 'Prime, you're damaged. Come on.' Buffy was tired, too tired to realise what was wrong.

He turned his massive head, for a second Buffy couldn't believe he was crying. Slowly he brought his hand back. A horrid feeling knotted up inside her chest as he slowly opened his hand. Black with both dried blood and burn marks, Prime held a broken Dawn. Under the mess that was her helmet there was one gap that showed pale skin and a closed eye. The expressionless mask that was frozen on her face had the over tone of fear and agony. Buffy slumped to the ground as her world seemed to spin.

* * *

Fortunately General Hammond had organised a massive military presence to prevent the public from being hurt, or indeed to witness the end of the Cybretronian war. With a little convincing they were able to get help transporting the damaged Autobots back to base and clean up the Decepticon wreckage. Xander could guess that the planets biggest minds would pour over the Decepticon components but from what he could tell they wouldn't understand any of it. 

At the Ark a final count was made. Over two thirds of the Autobot presence on Earth were un-repairable and already dead. Best estimate was that just over a quarter of the wounded would not survive. That left about 20 percent of the Autobots functioning that were this time the previous day.

Xander was with the two surviving Dinobots, Grimlock and Swoop, when he heard about Dawn. According to Prime Buffy was also malfunctioning and probably wouldn't respond to much. He was right, heck Xander was almost in the same state. Dawn dead, it was almost to much to take. It was Sunburst, that sounded better. He could ignore who it was if he though of her like that.

Walking on his own, half lost, he saw damaged and dead Autobots. They were piled outside cargo rooms or clinging to each other to stay standing. The entire thing was heart retching. Before the battle he had agreed with Buffy that they were soulless machines programmed to think and feel but looking around he couldn't hold on to that fantasy. These people were just different. Whatever a soul was they had one, the way they acted and lived and, in the end, died proved it. Numb from all the emotions arguing around in his mind he found himself in one of the cargo rooms. Placed in and around the boxes were fallen Autobots. With unshed tears filling his eyes he looked at them. brushing his face he remembered the mask of his Headmaster form and threw the whole helmet off. It bounced next to a nebulan that was slumped against a crate, he walked up to it not realising until it was too late that he had found the one person that he never wanted to see.

Dawn was propped there like a battered and broken toy. Her metal body resembled a lump of slag more than a person. Xander found himself looking into her face. Among the scrap and blood one open eye could be seen, in it he could see a bottomless pit of pain and despair stand out from her blooded blue eye…

It took Xander a few moments to get back up and wipe the tears from his own eyes, with a sad smile he leaned over and whispered 'Goodbye Dawnie.'

End chapter 10


	12. Chapter 11

All Creatures Great and Small  
Directors Edition  
Chapter 11

Riley and his team got back to base moments before dawn. The forces of darkness had came out in, well, force. They were trying to bully their way into a foothold before the promised reinforcements. To be honest Riley believed that the "reinforcements" were nothing but a moral booster. Nothing could stop these things if they attacked on mass, there just wasn't the man power trained to do it. So far the demons the teams met were small and not very powerful, they were scouts nothing more and they had humanity's defenders on the ropes through shear numbers.

The centre of town was now controlled by an army of Zombies, Skeletons that were pouring out of Sunnydale's almost infinite supply of graves. Not for the first time he asked himself why didn't more people cremate in this hell town. Some sort of super vampire was hiding in the abandoned buildings, so far only Williams with his napalm tank was any use against those guys. As they stumbled in Giles was telling the Colonel / Governor that he guessed the next attack would come at sunset. Apparently night enhanced the power of The First.

Riley really hoped they had a plan by then.

* * *

'Xander.' It was a faint whisper, for a moment he thought that he was hearing things. Pulling back he looked again into Dawn's revealed eye. She blinked that became a wince of pain, Dawn wasn't dead! 'Help...' it sounded like the whisper of a slow wind but it was there. Xander was stunned, the damage the pain she must be feeling. Oh god the pain.

'You must be in agony and we just dropped you in a morgue.' he gasped whipping on his helmet. Not thinking he could do any more damage Xander reached down and picked her up. 'My god, Dawnie. We'll find someone, what's his name "Fixit"? that little doctor! He can help.'

Slowly he felt something latch on to his shoulder, she had reached around his neck and opened a hatch on his shoulder. A crippling pain lanced through his mind and slowly words spread across his right field of vision. -no time.- -I've "jacked" into you.- -Sorry about the feedback- -Im doing what I can to limit it.-

'Dawn what do you mean "No time."?' Xander was moving as fast as he could. The combination of her added weight and the pain that was coming through the link left him stumbling like a drunken sailor.

-Fixit cant help- -damage 2 great.- -2 many damaged.- -Shuttle bay.- -equipment can help.-

'But…'

-Don't ask- -No time- -status lock not working- -downloaded directions- -deactivating link- -cant hold back feedback- -hurry.-

He didn't need telling twice, with the link disabled and the feedback gone he was able to almost run.

They made good time, Xander followed the hasty instructions Dawn had given him and put her into the chamber. He pushed the handle on the strange device up. The two sides swigged around like a giant pincer and the roof fell down enclosing Dawn in what looked to be an oversized box. Blinking little lights on the side flashed until they were all glowing a deep red that flipped to green

'Scanning subjects core memory.' He span around in the middle of the half room was a gold circular table with a hologram of the chamber spinning around. The bored sounding computer voice continued; 'Scan complete, schematics found. Activating C.R. chamber.' The box was replaced with a spinning image of Dawn in all her damaged glory. That image flickered red and blue for a moment before disappearing 'Accessing Autobot core conciseness.'

'Hi Xand what's up?' Dawn's human face appeared smiling in front of him but he blinked for a moment. It wasn't quite her face. It was a little bit too big in place, but never mind he thought.

'Dawn! Are you all right?' He asked urgently

She cocked an eyebrow at him before smiling 'Well lets say I will be, in about two hours or so.' She winced as the sound of sizzling bacon came from the Chamber. 'How went the battle?' Xander told her everything, the great loss of life and the final out come. He even showed off the move he used to kill Bludgeon.

'It's good that you can do that Xand, because before tonight we have to get back to Sunnydale.'

'Tonight!'

'Afraid so, and it's almost 11 now.' A small explosion from the chamber accompanied another wince. Xander was getting worried now 'Tell you what, find Buffy and get her here there's still some equipment that we can use in the crates.'

Finding Buffy wasn't very easy, the Autobots he asked had all seen her in different places in the last hour. He eventually found her outside the Ark sobbing in a tight ball. 'Buffy?'

'I should have been more firm with her. I should have locked her in there. She always had a knack for getting in trouble.' his friend looked up, she hadn't bothered taking the helmet off or opening the mask.

Xander sat beside her. 'Must have got it from you. Another thing she got was your stubborn streak.'

'Why couldn't we both be like mother? Well why couldn't she be more like her.' Buffy smiled. Being the only one of the three of them with a normal mouth as part of the mask Xander could see she was forcing a half smile.

'Your not going to give up, are you.' it wasn't a question.

Buffy looked at him before sitting up. 'No. I'll finish what she started, even if it kills me.'

'See that is your best trait. You never give up, give in. Dawn took that, she took the best of you. If she's half the person you are no force on Earth, or those guys in there, could have stopped her trying. Anymore than they could stop you. Come on, I've got something to show you.

* * *

Sunburst stepped out of the CR Chamber and stretched. She then spent a moment looking at her arm. It was sleeker and leaner than before. Instead of the bulky squares that made up her fingers they were now slender and had actual finger nails. 'Cool, new make over. Good thing they don't make toys with this many versions.'

She ran a check and found the mental link between her and Prime now had a shut off shunt; 'That might be useful' she mused out loud. The two of them were already practicing and before the battle had gotten to the point where they could talk to each other, now she could block part of that connection off.

* * *

When Xander lead Buffy into the shuttle bay Dawn's face had gone from the holographic display. 'What did you want to show me Xander, I have to find what's left of Dawn.'

CRASH! The two people span around and saw an odd shaped crate slide towards them, behind it another was being carried by a slimmer and altogether sleeker looking Sunburst.

'Dawnie?'

'Try again.' The Autobot dropped the second crate and kicked them both open before the Slayer crashed into her with a thankful hug.

'Your alive!' Buffy cried in shock. 'Do that to me again and they won't find all of the body you got me?'

The new Dawn nodded with a half laugh

'Now don't take this the wrong way but how? When I saw you…'

'Long or short of it?' She pried Buffy's arms away.

Xander was worried about the new "sleeker" look Dawn had and gave a quick mental command to scan her. 'Long please.' Buffy said taking a step back.

'O.K.' Dawn turned to the crates and started pulling all sorts of junk out of them. 'The long of it. Inside that little chamber over there,' she waved at the CR chamber Xander had half carried her to that morning; 'Is a lot of very little robots. About the same size as a cell, a couple of micrometers long at the most, and these little robots live to fix things. Xander dragged me up here and I had him put me inside. The little guys did there jobs, rebuilding, repairing and sometimes replacing my damaged systems.'

Buffy looked at it; 'Could it bring any of the Autobots back from the dead?'

'Well… I don't know. I wasn't dead and I'm half human so pure Cybertronians from this time period might have some problems interacting with the technology.'

'Huh' Buffy obviously didn't have a clue what her sister meant but Xander was already a step or so ahead.

'You're a cyborg Dawn. Most of your insides have been replaced by metal stuff and from what I can tell your brain is almost completely dead, you did die.' The scan he made was flashing up on his HUD

'Xander, Dawn died two weeks ago. That's why the Autobots built her into a Power-master. I'm still her but I can't pretend I'm not an Autobot, It's been you two pretending that I was still Dawn. I've told you a dozen times or more I'm Sunburst.'

* * *

Buffy looked at the woman / Autobot 'You're my sister. Nothing can change that.'

'Glad you realise that Buffy. Now on to business! If we're going to the Hellmouth we need weapons. And I'm not talking about those flashlights you've got at the moment.' Sunburst pulled a dirty brown and metallic cone from one of the crates. A rubber duck was stuck to the top.

Buffy giggled at the sight; 'That's a fearsome weapon Sunny, really powerful! What's it do shoot bubble bath at people?'

'Ha Ha sis,' Buffy watched as she put her hand in the bottom of the cone, a short sound came from under the duck. Suddenly the duck exploded, it had been stuck to a pair of serrated shears that were stuck half open 'watch and learn.' The sound came again and a pink/purple glow came from between the blades just before a teardrop shaped burst of sparkling energy pulsed out, sending a now empty crate flying. 'I take it you like? This "tail" cannon could punch a hole in a battleship and if shooting don't work the pincers can crush anything this side of impregnable.' the two shears flexed as if to illustrate the point.

'Cool.' Buffy took the odd thing and sat down on one of the back less chairs around the table to play with it.

Xander was right Dawn had chosen to fight. Thinking about it Buffy tried to take a step back, look at it from her sisters perspective when she saw the similarity. Buffy had become the Slayer, it had changed her but she was a better person for it. maybe the same could be true for her sister.

* * *

'So Buffy gets that tail thing, anything for me?' Xander looked at Da… Sunburst, he corrected himself.

'Lets see. I've got a crate full of demotion charges so you can have a few of them. Squeeze the two sides together and get rid of them before the big bang.' she explained. 'Got some for you too Buffy if you need it.

'I'm a gun in my other form Sunburst. Or did you forget?'

'Oops, kinda did. Sorry' As Sunburst apologised Xander took the two boxes she had handed him and looked for some where to put them. With a short sigh the Autobot put another on his chest. 'They're magnetic. Put them anywhere you want, ah.' She reached into the back of the crate. 'Here we go, a heavy repeater slug thrower. Or a chain cannon, whatever.' She pulled out an over sized green box with a wooden handle at one end and a flat on buss saw blade with maces attached on the other.

'That's a chain cannon?' Xander didn't recognise any barrels or ammo belts

'What's a "chain cannon"?' Buffy asked, she was making an experimental swing or two with the tail weapon.

'A multi barrelled machine gun. You know, the sort of thing aircraft have.' Xander explained as Sunburst armed and fired it into the now empty box, ripping it apart.

'We've got two, have both of em.' Sunburst handed him the one she had just used and another she fished out of the junk she had spread around.

'And where do I put them?'

'Same place I put my new gun.' Sunburst simply reach behind her back and pulled out a very large rifle and "cocked" it.

'What the hell?'

'Where…?'

'You've got a little box in on the small of your back, its called a subspace fold generator. Just put your new toys there.'

'Sorry Sun, what is a "subspace fold generator" and how do you know about it' Xander was wondering what nick name Buffy would stick with.

'Sis I know your blond but try not to show it,' Xander had almost laughed out of pure shock from that quip. Sunburst had more guts than the Dawn of old and that was saying something. 'The generator takes a bit of space and folds it on its self. Becoming a pocket of something called subspace. It can be as big as a planet or as small as a flea. It just takes a lot of energy to work right. I'll get Willow to explain it better later, just think of it as a magic pocket.' She looked at the gun for a moment before putting it back to the nowhere she got it from.

Xander shrugged and tried it, behind his back he felt his new guns slide into nowhere. A moment later he tried to quick draw both of them and the frankly massive guns were back in his hands. 'Now that is cool!'

* * *

Prime sat and listened to his medics tell him the bad news. Ten Autobots were repaired, recharged and ready to fight, not including themselves. It would be some time before anyone else was fighting fit, at least a day for most including Prime himself. Preceptor volunteered to go with the nine bringing it to eleven Autobots to save the world with another fifteen to come as a second wave later. The rest would take longer, a lot longer. In the end of the day he had lost just over half his forces in one battle.

Prime didn't like those odds he was left with, conventional Earth weapons had little or no effect on demons according to the experts so Cybretronian equipment's use was questionable. Fortunately two of the Dinobots were still functioning and were with the eight, their brute strength and close combat powers were the best of most Autobots but for the others this would be fists and what the humans called "back ally fighting".

'Prime, how you doing big guy?' The three human sized Autobots came up to him, Xander, Buffy and Sunburst. It took him a moment to realise that Sunburst should be deactivated and not walking around.

'How…'he started

'CR chamber, repaired and upgraded.'

Prime smiled knowing that they couldn't see his mouth 'I believe the correct response is "cool". We need to send a force to Sunnydale as fast as we can are you three fully functional.' He was more than glad that the small Sunburst was up and ready. A dull emotional pain had quite simply vanished.

More importantly it had an effect on the group that had gathered. Sunburst was part of Primus and the young Autobot's death was just as devastating to his men. Two of the Aerialbots had actually cheered when prime had recognised her.

'When do we leave?' Buffy asked. Prowl stepped by her side, almost as if he answered to her.

Prime looked at them 'As soon as you can, I'm afraid we only have a few warriors that can fight at the moment and I'll be needing you to help the humans.'

'You want us to help the humans keep out of the way of Armageddon. Let me make a not of that "Don't almost die again." Got to remember that. Buffy's already threatened to dismember me if I do that to her again and I have no intention to be hurt like that again.'

'We can hope that never happens Sunburst. We can hope.'

* * *

Sunburst looked around the green cockpit. Xander had taken the Grimlock express as he called it while Buffy said something about always wanting to fly on concord and Dawn liked the idea of a helicopter.

The strike team were almost all flight capable so had little difficulty in travailing fast. All the Aerialbots survived and made the core of the flight formation, That's where Buffy was with their leader Silverbolt. Grimlock and Swoop took the far sides of the formation, Xander with his head master partner and Springer flew just behind the flying wedge beneath the biggest of the lot Skyfire, who was the only one capable of carrying Preceptor and Prowl at any significant speed up here. The whole flight had broke the sound barrier shortly before evening. Dusk was once again just around the corner and thinks had never looked blacker to the young Autobot.

* * *

Jack was looking out of the living room window. Last night was mad, too many good men died and the monsters just kept coming. Tonight promised more of the creatures and less people to fight them. He had gotten word from Hammond of the battle that ended that morning.

The losses reported quite frankly shattered the faint hope he had. The only reason he didn't order a retreat was the words of that damn middle aged Englishman;

///Flashback\\  
Jack put the phone back on the hook, he wished there was something to drink 'That's it then.'

'That's what?' In the door-frame Giles polished his glasses on the corner of his old jumper.

'The Autobots won their war.'

'That's good news, they'll be here soon then.'

'No. From what Hammond tells me they lost a lot of men, too many. According to the officer on sight only two score or so made it back to their base under their own power and from what he saw only thirty Autobots could be salvageable.'

'At least we'll have that many.'

'What use is thirty tired, battle wary, Autobots against thousands of dead monsters and demons?' Jack dropped into a seat. 'We can't win.'

'No we can't.'

'What's the point then, were dead and "demons rule".'

'No one said we would win with a hundred Autobots with us. We hoped we could stop The First but hope is all we have. Colonel; outside you have a good thousand men, they still think that reinforcements are coming and that it could do some good. If they die tonight then they are saved from the eternity of torture they will suffer by living. This is the last day any of us will spend on this Earth, let them live it instead of fearing tonight.'  
///Flashback ends\\

* * *

General George Hammond looked at the report, whatever had been salvaged was nothing more than junk. Aside from several weapons and some computers there was nothing left that humanity could use. Now with every nation of Earth knowing about the Stargate things were moving too quickly.

The only countries that could complain with any degree of effect were too busy rebuilding. George was writing a overall report for them when the sergeant came in.

'Sir, the Autobots are sending a transmission. They're asking for you.'

It took them a moment to get to the control centre, mounted next to the supercomputer's was a golden interface and monitor. Major Carter had, with a team of the SGC's best scientists, reasoned that it alone had more computing power than the entire eastern sea board and then didn't touch it again.

The blue and silver face of Optimus Prime was on the screen, 'General Hammond I have good news. Shortly before our last battle with the Decepticons I sent three of my space capable Autobots to our homeworld.'

'Yes I know. We tracked them leaving the planet but couldn't tell where they went.' That was true. The Autobots space craft accelerated, in Major Carter's words, like the laws governing space and time were siting in the corner with a dunces hat on.

'I knew we would need reinforcements. They should be here in a few hours, approaching from the same trajectory.'

George winced; 'Shortly after we tracked them out we lost our observation satellites.'

'Oh yes, so that's where megatron got his army of Insecticons. I'll patch in Telatran one's scans.' The screen switched to show a image of deep space.

'Prime I only see two ships, surly that's not all the reinforcements?'

'Those two ships carry all the Autobots that were left on Cybertron.'

'What?' George didn't catch on to what Prime was telling him. The Autobot leader couldn't mean all of them.

'General, those two ships are carrying the entire Autobot race.'

'How can two ships carry that many?'

'Size is hard to judge in space, the larger of the two is called Metroplex, he is an Autobot in his own right and about the same size as your New York state.' George felt his eyebrows try to crawl off his forehead.

* * *

'Daw… Sunburst who are Fortress Maximus and Metroplex?' Buffy asked her sister. Prime had radioed an update to them on route.

'Maximus is a big Autobot, about two miles long and a mile wide. If he wanted to he could level a city from orbit. Metroplex is his bigger friend, he doesn't need guns to level the city just his feet… hang on...'.

'That's big, a little too big.'

'No Xander that's just the right size.' the Slayer come target master knew that sound. it was the sound of her sisters voice when she had just had a particularly good, or crazy, idea. Sunburst had an idea and Buffy didn't want to guess what it could be.

'For what?' Springer, however, did.

'I think we ask our big friends to come to Sunnydale high.'

'Sun, that would crush the school and the entire town.' Buffy couldn't quite see where this was going.

'Well you guys got to blow the school up, call it family tradition. And what better way to close a hole than fill it. Think of the Hellmouth as a big bath and Metroplex as the plug.'

'Several billion tons of metal sealing the Hellmouth?' Preceptor asked, sounding more curious than horrified. 'Would that work? Calculating speed entry into the planets atmosphere Metroplex could impact with a the force of a large meteorite. He never was exactly mobile or agile in flight.'

Sunburst sounded unsure when se said; 'I think I know someone that could help. He can't intervene directly but he can help.'

'Who?' Buffy asked

'Primus' Sunburst answered

Xander's voice cracked over the radio. 'Why can't Primus do anything? I thought he was a god?'

'He is. Gods can't effect mortal wars. If he helps it tips the balance in our favour and that's bad.' that confused Buffy but Sunburst hadn't finished. 'How do I explain this to you guys. The universe is like a spinning plate on a pole. If it stops spinning or gets over balanced it falls to the floor and cracks.

'Now there is something that doesn't want that to happen. That something would try to rebalance everything. The First cold manifest, or even pull its own legion of Glory's out of it's back pocket.'

'Whoa.' Springer exclaimed; 'Is that something what you guys call God?'

'Nope, above and beyond. The Gods are the ones who made the plate. I think. Anyway the point is Primus can't do anything without major consequences but he can help stop Metroplex on his way down. The only thing I'm a bit unsure of is the continental shelf.'

'I've got some crazy glue and silly putty if that helps.' Xander supplied

'And when a third of the continent slips off that will be useful.' Buffy replied. 'What about the army of demons, or will they just get squashed flat?'

'If the surviving Autobots keep them in place that's about right. This could work guys. Sunburst to Optimus Prime we have a plan up here...'

* * *

Riley and his team were not doing very well, the instant the sun set an army of undead burst from the labyrinth of sewers beneath. Head shot were the order of the day along with whatever sharp and/or blunt things within reach. It hadn't taken long for him to give the retreat order for all the good it did.

They fought their way into the streets only to be surrounded buy the shuffling Zombies and sword wheedling skeletons. Williams's Napalm tank was dry and they were about to get swarmed under the endless hoard of undead. From high above something growled, Riley risked looking up. 'What the HELL!?!'

'GRIMLOCK CRUNCH!' It was big, grey and looked like a metal dinosaur. A two legged metal dinosaur that breathed fire. Landing amongst the thousands of dead things it seamed to smile as it moved through the monsters, crushing, stomping and burning them all. Then a hatch on its back flipped up and a metal man stood on it's shoulders. With two huge guns the man cut great swaths in the undead ranks.

'Riley, I think our reinforcements have arrived.' His wife laughed blowing another skeleton to bits.

'Sir, here comes another one' one of his men pointed to something in the sky This one had wings and two big bombs, it was kind of obvious that they were bombs because they made a big explosion at the opposite end of the road before blasting a hole in the dead army next to the rescued men.

'Me Swoop, me help. Get on, get on back. We fly away.' the giant bird landed in one of the craters it had made, biting any passing creatures with it's long beak. As they took off the two legged one he guessed was called Grimlock jumped, and a pillar of fire shot out from its feet, soon both were in the now almost completely dark sky.

Two things happened at once, the first was that one of Riley's men mentioned that there was no cockpit or controls on the bird-o-saur and the other was the fluttering cloud that was approaching. 'Bats WHAT THE HELL? I didn't know that the First was that unoriginal.'

'Those ain't bats soldier boy, they're harpies.' It was the metal man with the two chain cannons, his voice was familiar.

'Xander?' Xander Harris?' Riley called out to the other rescuer

'Sorry Xander is busy at the moment. Please leave a message with the T-REX!' With that the once Zeppo span around and fired at the close formation of behind them.

* * *

The road in front of the house fell in moments before the armies of hell burst forth and just as the sun set. 'For crying out loud!' Jack had shouted before realising just how glad he was for the defences his men set up.

A short while after the attack began and he was snapping the third mag' into his P90 only the noise of battle could be heard. Then, low and fast, came the familiar green helicopter. It slowed down almost instantly to hover ten feet above the new cave in the middle of the road. It's downdraft was enough to force most of the undead back into the hole they came from. A slim robot leaned out of the cockpit:-

'Hey, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!' Sunburst cried as she dropped two boxes into the pit before the helicopter banked away sharply.

'EVERYONE DOWN' Jack could almost see what would happen next. He wasn't disappointed.

Everything in the hole came out all at once as half the road itself was ripped up in a titanic explosion, for ten seconds it rained dust, body parts and tarmac. No one could tell which was what. Brushing himself off he looked around, most of he base survived but they were busy covering themselves from the debris. Only SG1, Faith and the two Watchers were standing to see the helicopter land and then switch into his robot mode.

'You got them.' He said to the silver blue and green Autobot that landed next to him.

'Was there any doubt?' she asked with a tilt of her head.

* * *

On the other side of town Angel looked at the high school trough a telescope. It was the closest anyone had to a vantage point over the town and his old manor house. The family that had moved in was one of the first to leave, meaning that he and two of his friends could move in with little fuss. He had seen the Autobots arrive in the centre of town and at Buffy's house, he breathed a sigh of relief. Not that he needed to these days but sometimes his old human habits were hard to shake. His vampire hearing picked up a faint flutter of leather wings. 'Oh no! Gunn!'

Wesley was back at Buffy's, only Fred and Gunn had come with him to help look out. Willow had also come with them, she wasn't comfortable in the house for obvious reasons but she still refused to use her magic. Angel knew it was cruel but he felt she wasn't as helpful as she once was, in fact she was more a target than a threat to the bat winged half human animals descending on the four of them.

Before the fight had even begun something else happened. The windows rattled as the something happened, walls shook, ears bled and everything was sent flying to the ground as the something happened. The something happened to fly so low that it destroyed the roof of the building that Angel and the gang with him had hidden in. Recovering as fast as they did all the expectant combatants looked up, trying to find out what something had happened. Four planes flew in formation behind the something, each one braking the sound barrier the same way the last had. The sonic booms like thunder cracks shattering stone.

Now the building was falling down around them. The harpies took to their wings and flew after the new foes while the humans (and vampire) ran out the door.

A Concord jet plane landed on the short driveway without any trouble. Its long fuselage with the down pointing nose cone and sweeping wings slid there in a pristine white. The only thing that shocked them more was the red face printed on his side and the opening door, 'All boarding Autobot airlines please have your luggage ready!' Buffy called out. Above them the four other jets began shooting the Harpies down.

* * *

The fourth group of Autobots also came in fast and low. While the plane was one of the biggest of all the earthbound Autobots everything in the small city of Sunnydale was more interested in kicking the crap out of each other beneath them so it passed quietly towards its target. The centre of town.

Onboard Skyfire, Preceptor transformed into his microscope mode and began scanning the area with everything he had. This was the first time the Autobots had been able to scan a stable rent in the fabric of dimensional realities. After a moment he discovered that instead of a stable rent it was a constructed crossroads between this world and many others, somehow this part of the world was a bridge into the other worlds and places in ninth dimensional space. He was so interested in the way the portal worked that he didn't notice the first demon claw its way out.

Skyfire, however, did. Quickly spiralling up he dropped his nose cone and dived at the thing, blasters firing constantly. Prowl pulled his friend back Preceptor transformed and thanked him. At first it looked like the demon was impervious to Skyfire's weapons on account of its yellow exoskeleton absorbing the shots but one shot burst through. Then another and another. Preceptor had taken the time to reset his microscope into its weapon mode and transformed again, he shattered the things armour with one shot, the exoskeleton splintered and the demon burst like a balloon. What was left of the many limb-ed, fly-eyed, thing was nothing more than green slime.

Unfortunately that was not the only Fly-eyed, many limb-ed thing with an exoskeleton to crawl out of the dimensional crossroads. 'I think it's a good idea to get out of here' Prowl cried out, firing his shoulder rocket into the widening pit. Skyfire agreed and jetted off to the human base while Preceptor joined his fire with Prowl and they shot back at the small group of true demons crawling up in to this dimension.

Landing they found little Sunburst explaining the risky and perhaps only workable plan to the humans. They were sceptical and not very pleased with the situation.

'So your going to land a city on top of Sunnydale? A city full of Autobots.'

'That's the plan, Colonel;. Look this world is falling apart, the damage Unicron's explosion did basically destroyed most of this worlds infrastructure. We both know that with the armed forces here the entire west coast of America is in chaos. Riots, crimes are all epidemic. We can help. With the entire Autobot race on this planet we can fix whatever is damaged, within ten years you can have this world better than it was before and the Autobots will leave to reclaim Cybertron from the Decepticons. As it stands even if the First wasn't attacking this world would be doomed with out our help.' Preceptor looked at the young Autobot, she had the same sense of conviction and leadership that Prime had.

The Colonel looked at her like he saw the same thing. 'This is a big decision, too big for one man to make.'

She stamped her foot in annoyance. '"O'Neill." That name is spoken from one end of this galaxy to another. Everywhere you are known as a warrior and a leader, the Asguard named their flag ship after you for crying out loud. Your fast becoming a legend Jack. Despite it all you are the ambassador of Earth. The president of the United States defers to you on this sort of stuff.'

'Only once.' the human admitted.

'You are the only person that can make a decision, do so and soon.' Sunburst finished, in reality she was just a bit shorter than him but at that moment she towered over the human.

'C... Can you give me some time to think about it?' He asked

Skyfire answered, 'We don't have the time, look!' The blast crater in the road rumbled shortly before a five headed snake demon punched its way out. The Autobots reacted immediately, those who hadn't transformed in a flash an they all fired on mass. Combined their weapons left very little mass and Sunburst was giving orders before the smoke had even cleared.

'Springer. You, me, Grimlock and Xand are sewer bound. Aerialbots, we need Superion to stand over the Hellmouth with that massive gun of his. Think of it as target practice, we need you to slow them down. Sis; you and the rest get the word out, any humans standing in Sunnydale are flat if they don't get out of dodge fast. Skyfire can you carry the wounded?'

'Sure.'

'Then boys and girls,' she pulled out a short stocked energy rifle. 'Lets play hard ball.' They were moving before they even questioned who was giving the orders.

* * *

For a moment Sunburst let her ego inflate, then she realised she had volunteered to jump into the Sunnydale sewer system to hunt demons that had a tendency to splatter like ripe melons when shot. If she still had a digestive system, she reasoned, she would be sick. Springer transformed into his car form and opened the door. 'Lets go little one.' he called and she winced, hoping that little nick name wasn't going to stick.

With a hidden gulp she jumped in mounting her new gun on the dashboard, despite it all she would not show just how scared she really was.

* * *

Buffy watch the stranger drive off. Dawn really was gone; only Willow, Xander and Giles were left in her life. With great effort she held her head up and started to look around. The big jet was already loading people and equipment. She was looking for something anyone had missed when she saw Faith half drag a beaten and dishevelled man out of her house. Buffy thought that it must be Faith's newest Boy-toy before she was outraged to see that Faith's new toy was her Spike. How dare Faith "play" with him. Spike was hers.

For the longest moment she flipped that last thought around in her mind. For some reason she laughed, a rich laugh that attracted a lot of attention.

* * *

Spike had been alone for so long, left lying there as part of the furniture trying to get better. Then all but one of the people who had plagued his dreams had faded into nothing. Now the girl with the spinning sword had carried him out and the remaining ghost was laughing. He looked up and saw someone in armour dash up to him, she through her helmet to the ground reviling a blond halo and tear filled eyes.

They held on to each other for a long time, refusing to move before a strange tall robot with a police car for a chest and doors in the place of wings picked them up and gently placed them in a plane that carried them away.

* * *

Superion dropped from the sky to a building near the Hellmouth as the girl had suggested. She had also told him to take some target practice and that's just what this was doing. His built in cannon glowed yellow before firing the first volley into the mass of limbs and teeth. He fired again and again and again before spiting into his components.

Slingshot stood on top of a building, a static figure sniping off anything he could hit. Airraid along with Skydive ran amongst the buildings shooting and fighting whatever was hiding. Silverbolt and Fireflight performed strafing runs against the demon horde crawling out. They were horribly outnumbered and there weapons had to hit many times before they did any good. While they were winning for now they were still using up a lot of energy and couldn't spare that much more.

The sewers weren't big enough for Springer or Grimlock so Grimlock went first. His bulk and shear strength pushed the walls out and left a trail that could be seen from the surface. The three Autobots looked for any signs that there were still demons down there with them. There wasn't any, well non that Grimlock hadn't squashed flat.

They broke out of the underground maze in the middle of the fire-fight at the centre of the Hellmouth and the two Autobots in front added their own brand of madness to the fight. Combined in robot mode Xander had the brains, and luck, to guide Grimlock's raw power into a effective killing machine. With a blaster in one hand and energy sword in the other demon limbs were scattered all over the place.

Sunburst jumped out of Springer and made her way to some cover, picking off the odd undead minion that survived. Springer himself mirrored Grimlock with his own two weapons.

After a few moments Sunburst switched to her radio. The Aerialbots were long out of ammo and were down to beating the demons with cars and other pieces of the landscape. Sunburst felt the dull pulse of her rifle and looked around. 'That's all we can do here guys, we've rocked and now we gotta roll.'

'You heard the boss.' Xander shouted as Grimlock stooped down to pick her up.

* * *

Colonel O'Neill looked out at the town, everyone had been evacuated and the demons had retreated for the time being. He watched as the cluster of Autobots flew into the sky when a large shadow passed over head.

Before he could react a familiar red truck pulled up next to him. 'Governor O'Neill. Sunburst filled me in on her proposal, I agree it's the best way for both our people.'

'As do I. Despite what she said I can't speak for every nation but I can just about guarantee America will take you up on the offer.'

Grimlock and Sunburst landed gently next to them. 'Good to know sir!' the small autobot girl shouted. 'Are you ready to guide the big guy down Prime?'

'Whenever you are Sunburst.' The Colonel found out what they were talking about when they merged. Jack had heard a lot about this guy but this was the first time he had met him. The only words he could use to describe this 'God' was just that, none of the false god show the Goa'uld put on. Optimus Primus was the biggest and most impressive Autobot he had ever seen. He was both sleek and well built, immense liquid steel wings acted like a cloak and as he jumped they fanned out like a birds.

The ship he carried down however dwarfed him. It was a city for Autobots stretching almost from one end of the horizon to the other. It was full of towering buildings and glorious spires. While the humans stood in wonder the earthbound Autobots waved. Those in the city could be seen pointing the different things they could see. Several were praying to the reincarnated God who silently guided the incalculable weight that was coming down.

It landed without so much as a tremor a hand span away from them. A good part touching the surface of the close ocean but not enough to over balance it. The Hellmouth was sealed forever without a sound.

For a moment all was still, Jack blinked away the shock of it all quickly but couldn't think of anything to say, eventually he settled on the most pointless thing he could come up with. 'Well that's that then. Next we find the lost city of the Ancients and then defeat Anubis.'

'A nudist?.' Everyone span around to look at Grimlock, 'What me say?'

O'Neill simply hung his head; 'Why didn't I come up with that?'

End Chapter 11


	13. EPILOGUE

All Creatures Great and Small  
Directors Edition  
EPILOGUE

Sunburst opened the door and was not particularly surprised when she saw the old Scooby gang plus a few guests standing outside looking uncomfortable. 'Come in, the ship doesn't leave for another few hours anyway.'

Buffy barged in and, despite being a good foot smaller than Sunburst without armour, tried to intimidate the Power-master. 'What the hell do you think you are doing?'

'Its called fighting a war.' Sunburst smiled a sickly grin at her sister. 'I am the high commander of the Micromasters you know that. The last thing I can ever ask them to do is fight without me leading them.'

'…to their, and now your, deaths!'

'If need be, yes Buffy. Its my job yours is to fight vampires, mine is to fight Decepticons.' Sunburst stepped up to Buffy no way she could cower the Slayer but she wouldn't back down.

'Sunburst,' Giles hovered between polishing his glasses and putting them back on. 'A General's job is to command the battle not to lead it. You can command your army from here if need be.'

'Yes see. No need to leave the planet and get killed. You can stay here and be the hero.' Buffy agreed a bit too fast.

Sunburst repressed her anger' "Be a hero." Yes Buffy. That's exactly what I want to be. A hero face down in a pool of my own mec-fluid. You don't understand, you can't.' She walked over to her desk, several books lay open. Picking up one she tossed it to Buffy, then another to Giles and another to Xander. 'In World War one generals would sit twenty miles from the trenches, casualties were numbers on a piece of paper. They called it a good day when they had less dead that the other side and poured in more men.' She'd been reading military tactics when she could, like she was studying for a test. 'How can I ask people to fight for their own world, give up their lives when I am not willing to take a stand. I could sit here and give orders and watch the figures increase knowing that each number printed was a life. In the end that's all they'll be to me. Numbers on paper those same numbers are still lying in a field in France from world war one.'

With tears in her eyes Sunburst stared at Buffy, trying to make her feel every word. 'I know at heart you don't believe me but listen. Every one if them is as human as you are in every way that matters. They grow, they can learn, love, hate, laugh and cry. They are born and they certainly can die. I didn't ask for this, I don't want it but I am the only person who can do it. And I will do it right.'

Wordlessly Buffy hugged her sister, when she had finished Giles offered his hand. 'I know your mother would be proud of you.' he said.

She said her goodbye's and listened to their advice and gave some of her own. Mostly to stay in touch with each other and to always remember her.

As The young half Autobot left in the large shuttle, at the joint head of the invasion force, she risked a glance back wondering if she would see any of it again.

* * *

///Almost twenty years later\\\

'Receiving IDC. It's the Autobots.' The technical sergeant said

'Open the iris.' Major-General Sam Carter watched though the reinforced glass as two Micromasters stepped out of the Stargate. They were followed by a shorter Autobot. Thinner and obviously female who's silver, purple and green paint work some how failed to clash with the blue of the wormhole event horizon. A couple of years ago the Autobots had devised away to link their Space bridge technology into the Stargate network.

Sam headed down to the gate room, she half laughed to herself. Over the years she had been able to understand Goa'uld, Asguard, Ancient and even Wraith technology. But she never understood even the simplest thing that the Cybertronians used. None of it followed the rules that all the other races were bound to. Sam's current hobby (one she'd had for he last twenty or so years) was a standard Decepticon blaster. At the moment she knew a little about the power source and the trigger mechanism but she had no idea how to replicate either of them let alone the idea that it ran off the elemental form of energy itself. She shook herself out of her thoughts.

'Sunburst. Welcome back.'

'Thanks General its been a while.'

'Mind if we go to the briefing room?'

'Not at all,' the young Autobot gestured to her bodyguards. 'These are my lieutenants, Bluetooth and Reddusk.' Bluetooth was thin and a sky blue in colour that blurred into silver at the edges, an oversized shield was attached to his left shoulder while a three pronged pike was attached to his right arm. At a guess it could also project some form of destructive energy. Reddusk was more of a dark scarlet than bright red. Very thickly armoured and as well as his heavy fists he had some form of cannon on his left shoulder and a relay dish on his right.

On their way to the briefing room Sam noticed something else, Sunburst had a short pony tail of brown/black hair coming from underneath her helmet, a throw back to her short lived, human, past.

Once they got there Sam got started 'What brings you to Earth?'

'Lets see.' She sat down on the far chair. 'The Decepticons surrendered last week, we just finished the party you know. So my job now is to see how well things are going on Earth and how things are going with your trans-stellar war. Oh and to say hello to the guys.'

'Nothing important then?' Sam joked back, her husband's sense of humour was infectious.

'I'm thinking of getting a manicure, but other than that just lots of shoes.'

* * *

About a day later Sunburst smiled to herself. The meeting with Pickmix, the Autobot's reconstruction team leader and representative to the Earths governments, went well (aside from some hero worship on his part that worried her). Shortly after the news broke with Earths media she had dodged some interviews. Now she was in Cleveland, in a nicely normal car. With a subtle mental command she activated her hologram pack. It was something Wheeljack had built for spying, a holo-pack could take the form of anything of equal mass and plaster it over the wearer. Prefect for what she planned.

Stepping out of the car she, and her two bodyguards, looked perfectly human. She was an older version of her old self while the other two holograms were created from scratch. She knocked on the door and it was opened by a cute little girl with such dark brown hair that only her high cheek bones and long face showed any difference from Dawn at that age. 'Hello?' the child asked.

'Oh I'm sorry does Buffy live here?' Sunburst asked with a smile

'Yes. She's my mum.'

Bluetooth snorted with suppressed laughter and Sunburst scratched the bridge of her nose and barely stopped chuckling herself. A short man with mid length bleached white hair came to the door. 'What do you want?' he asked, tone verging on a demand.

Sunburst smiled, keeping her hand in place she knew he hadn't recognised her. 'I was asking this sweet little girl whether or not Buffy was here.' Then she moved her hand and stared him full in the face.

'She is. What do…' Spike trailed off, 'Little Bit?'

'How did you guess?' She laughed only to have the vampire try and crush her in a bear hug. Before shouting upstairs;

'Love get down here! We've got a guest!'

Sunburst entered while her guards followed. A moment passed and Buffy came down the stairs, the years had been kind. Aside from a bit of extra weight she hadn't changed and that much awaited growth spurt had spectacularly failed to show any results.

The woman looked confused for a moment before looking at Spike who was grinning like a Chester cat. Sunburst smiled and with a mental command deactivated the hologram. 'Long time no see Sis'.'

Buffy jumped the hand full of steps and hugged her as fiercely as Spike had a few moments before. 'When did you get here!' Buffy squealed.

Sunburst opened her helmet plates. 'Yesterday. I've been a busy though.'

'Come on, I'll phone the others.' Buffy looked down to see her daughter who was tugging on her leg for attention.

'Is she an Autobot?' She asked her mother.

'Her name's Sunburst, Tara. Say hello.' Sunburst smiled down to her little niece.

'I've already done that mummy. Are you my ant?' Yet again Bluetooth laughed.

Sunburst got to her knees 'In a way. And I think its "Aunt".'

'Can you tell me a story?' Sunburst looked to Buffy to see if her sister said it was alright. Buffy nodded

'You call the gang and I'll tell little Tara a good story.' She turned to the small girl. 'What type of story do you want?'

'A good one.' The brunet child replied dragging Sunburst into the living room. By now Reddusk and Bluetooth had deactivated their own holograms and followed

Sunburst sat down and watched as her niece sat cross-legged in front of her and she started her story.

It was a lot more difficult than Sunburst first guessed, most of her experience came from having the wrong end of an X-ray laser cannon pointed at her however she had spent a long time reading earths history and one story came to mind. 'I'll tell you the story of The Battle of the White Mountain.

'A long time ago a man lived. His name was Sisker and he was blind so people called him Blind Sisker. Now at this time the Pope didn't like a lot of people. One of the people he didn't like was Blind Sisker. So…

* * *

Buffy got off the phone with Xander and was about to phone Willow. Glancing into the living room she could see her sister laughing as she told Tara a story. Spike seemed to find it amusing too which was worrying, her husband had a weird sense of humour at the best of times. She had to ask Sunburst what the story was…

* * *

'Was the Pope a bad man?' little Tara asked

'At the time probably, White Mountain was one of the first times cannon was used on the battle field. The knights weren't ready for it.' Sunburst told her.

'I think it's a good story. Is it real?'

'A lot of stories are real Tara.' Sunburst looked up as the front door opened, Xander came in with Anya in tow.

'Hi Dawnie!' Xander had a mischievous twinkle in his eyes and Anya half smiled.

* * *

With a nod Bluetooth left Sunburst to catch up with her old family. He was never one for crowds and he found himself in another room looking at the pictures on the wall. Most were simple images, many of the group that was gathering in the other room. Then he came a cross one on its own, a sunny faced young human with dark hair. At first Bluetooth thought it was the young child they had first met, but his human was older. It took him a moment to realise that this image was of his commander in a earlier time.

'That's the little bit, a few years before the war.' Bluetooth span around. The short human who let them into the house was watching him.

'I'm sorry. I just don't feel comfortable in there.'

'Not a problem. I want to talk with one of you two anyway.'

'Why?'

He seamed to breath out quickly from his nose in amusement. 'I know Summers women. They can be shot, stabbed, blown up and crushed on the same day and still insist they're fine. I'm Spike.'

'Bluetooth, it is an honour to meet you.'

He sat down at the small table and offered Bluetooth a seat. 'So your what, her bodyguard?'

'Myself and Reddusk.'

'Who gave you that job?'

'We volunteered, shortly after her surprise attack on the Decepticon command bunker.'

'Surprise attack?'

'Yes. In the first battle to recapture Cybertron we landed and were met with heavy fire from the Decepticons. Prime ordered a retreat. She shouted for volunteers and charged down the guns. It gave us the victory we needed, she said she got the idea from something called "The Charge of the Light Brigade".'

'The light brigade got massacred.' The human said.

'She mentioned that afterwards, only the three of us survived. At first we wondered what the point was, then she turned the bunkers defences against the Decepticons and then tried something she called "blitzkrieg tactics". She had all the Autobots that could charge through that one breach we made and back track, forcing the Decepticons to fight both in front and behind. It was brilliant, but dangerous. She never tried it again. When Prime suggested it she refused. We lost a lot of good Autobots in that charge, including my brother.'

That brought his head up, from the image; 'I'm sorry, and surprised you don't blame her.'

'When we were in the bunker she took a photon blast for me. I can't blame her for the casualties caused by the Decepticons. According to Telatran 1 the charge saved lives compared to a retreat.'

'I take it that you have a lot of respect for her.'

'We all do. Before the end even the Decepticons respected her battle skills. It was strange, every tactic and surprise manoeuvre she came up with seemed to have a story behind it. That one she told your child, White Mountain, she used it before. One time a commando team of Decepticons were destroying supply and medical centres behind our lines. She organised a convoy but disguised the heavy cannons it was comprised of as supply trucks. When the Decepticons attacked she had the artillery fire on mass. Not one survived.' Bluetooth said with little enthusiasm. 'Your world is a violent place, your people don't just fight wars you live them. We have been fighting for millennia and yet your people are more violent and more deadly.'

'That's the nature of man I'm afraid, we have so many differences and so many fears that we fight more and more. One day we might all live in a magical wonderland where everyone gets along but you'll excuse me if I don't think I'll live to see it.' He said, the man took a drink from his cup. Bringing his container down Bluetooth saw that his face had warped into something else.

Taking a logical leap the Autobot warrior was confused 'But you are vampire are you not. Your kind cannot die of old age.'

'That's what I mean.' he smiled sadly. 'It's the nature of man to fight.'

The End

* * *

Authors Postscript  
There we go the Directors Edition of All Creatures Great and Small and while this book is over the story continues across the multi-verse that is Generation 1.5. Check my profile for updates and other books that follow the adventures of the transformers, from the crashing of the Ark through to the rise of Galvatron, the death of Optimus Prime and beyond...

Mountain King  
AKA Thomas Fishwick  
2007


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